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March 12, 1883. 



Price, 25 Cents. 



No. 84. 




Copyrlffht, iaS3, by Fttnk & Waoxali 8. 

Entered in New York Poit-Offic« as MCoiid-«\a6* mail matter. 



Siil)Rrrlpflnn f-rli o. 
per year, ^5. 



PTUIXIB ERS 1 "TO 79. 

Prevfotts numbers of tins Library were known by the name Standaei) Seriks. 
A list of these 79 books will be found on the 3d page of the cover of ttiis volume. Thev 
are printed in 4to, 8vo, and 12ino sizes, and are bound in postal card mauilla. They aw 
standard books, and are very clieap. 



Fi^OTSAM AiVO JETSAM. 

By THOMAS GIBSON BOWLES. 

This master mariner evidently launched his yacht with his eyes in his head— just where 
they ought to be. He has used them well, and succeeded in gathering much valuable 
Flotsam, and in fishing up from the deep strange specimens of Jetsam. The book literally 
abounds with new and sometimes startling thoughts, put In a style which proves the strik- 
ing originality of the author's mind. While sailing from place to place In his yacht Ir- 
meets with varied experiences, and notes down in graphic pen-pictures facts and the 
lessons he gathers from them. His strongest characteristic is his deep knowledge of 
human nature, and sometimes he gives us such pictures of it as must make the reader 
wince; and yet there Is such a fascination In Its pages that, however we may sometimes 
differ from his opinions and conclusions, and smart under his portrayal of human weak- 
nesses, we cannot lay the book down until it is all read, and even then Intelligent readers 
will not be satisfied, but will return to it and read it again. 



PAXTOX HOOO'S LIFE OF CROMWEEL. 

No. 80 Standard Library (No. 1, 1883 Series). Price, 25c. 

SCIEI^CE EV SHORT CHAPTERS. ' 

By W. MATTIEU AVILLIAMS, F.R.S.A., F.C.S. 
No. 81 Standard Library (No. 2, 1883 Series). Price, 25c. 

AMERICAX HEIVIORISTS. 

By R. H. HAWEIS. 

No. 82 Standard Library (No. 3, 1883 Series). Price, 15c. 

LIVES OF lEEESTRIOUS SHOERSAKERS. 

By WILLIAM EDWARD WINKS. 
No. 83 Standard Library (No. 4, 1883 Series). Price, 25c. 

rtEADING- CIRCLES. 

What can better and more rapidly cultivate the literary taste than the rightly managed 
Reading Circle? In a number of localities, sometimes within churches, sometimes wholly 
secular, such circles have been in operation during the past year. Cheap books make theui 
eaf^ily possible. It will be no difficult tasK to establish sucii circles In connection with the 
Standard Libbary. A valuable book can now be secured, without overtaxing the purse, 
by each member of thie club every two weeks. It can be read during the intervening period . 
A critical essay upon the book by some one appointed for this purpose should be read and 
then the discussion made general, in which the merits and demerits of the ))ook may be 
pointed out, or the subject of the book be discussed. It is wonderful how rapidly by such a 
plan a literary taste Is developed. 

To encourage the formation of these Circles we will give the following 

PRIZES: 

1. We will donate Ten Dollars' worth of any of our books to the library of the R.eati> 

ing Circle that will send us the best plan of organization for a Reading Circle on or 
before April, 1883. 

2. We will donate Five Dollars' worth of any of our books to the Library of the Read- 

ing Circle that will send us the best critical essay on any one of the 26 books issued 
during 1883. The essay must be written by a member of the Reading Circle, and must be 
sent us within eight weeks after the date of the issue of the book. The date of issue is 
printed on each book. Each essay should contain about 25iK) words. This offer holds 
for the 26 books published this year. We will claim the privilege of publishing in book- 
form the 26 successful essays at the close of the year. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 



A YACHTSMAN'S EXPERIENCES AT 
SEA AND ASHORE. 



BY 



THOMAS GIBSOISr BOWLES 

MASTEK MARINER. 



"The sea's a rumbustical place."— Bill Wigo. 




NEW YORK: 

FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, 
10 AND 12 Dey Street. 



71? 4-1''' 



\2i- 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



Several changes have been made in this edition of " Flotsam and 
Jetsam " upon the English edition ; the most important of which is 
the addition of a full Index. The English edition contains no Index. 

New Yobk, March 1, 1883 



Copyright, 1883, by Funk & Wagnalls, New York. 



PEEFAOE. 



I DO not pretend to be a sailor — none but a sailor knows how 
much that word means — but I love the Sea. From my boy- 
hood (I once ran away to go to sea, but was captured and 
ignominiously brought back when well on my way to Liver- 
pool) I have sought to learn sea-lore ; and I have now learned 
how little I know of it. But seafaring has become, and still 
is, to me, a school, a consolation, and a refuge from the 
trivialities, the meannesses, and the confusions of land life. 
The grand, solemn, serious Sea, so exacting yet so loving, so 
remorseless yet so kindly, always reminds me — sometimes 
when I have well-nigh forgotten it — that there are real things 
in the world as well as unreal phrases ; plain duties as well as 
doubtful opinions ; proved methods as well as shifting specu- 
lations, philosophies, and policies. 

So it is that these writings arose. I did not set out to 
make a book. I did think these thoughts, such as they are, 
and see these things, and simply set them down as they came 
to me. They are not mere inventions ; they are the expression 
of what was struck out of me in the conflict between the reali- 
ties of the Sea and the fancies of the shore. This is my only 

excuse for them. 

T. G. B. 

Cleeve Lodge, Hyde Park Gate, London. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 



FLOTSAM 



CHAPTER I. 

On Board the Billy Baby, 

CowES, 8th May, 1874. 

A REAL man is always alone in the world. Were he not he 
would not be a real man, as I understand it — that is to say, a 
distinct entity, not a copy of all other men, but with the prin- 
cipal and important part of him thoroughly belonging to him- 
self. How shall such a one find a mate who shall really be 
such to him ? Pieces of looking-glass indeed he may find, 
which will according to their quality more or less reproduce 
the outside of him as they will of any other — they have been 
quicksilvered to that one end ; but a duplicate of himself ; 
nay, or another at all like himself, he may not hope for in man 
or woman. For his especial character is that he is what he 
himself and Providence have made him ; that he has set up 
in the chaos with infinite labor and good fortune a little plat- 
form of his own just broad enough for the sole of his foot. 
Another cannot stand there with him, though many be above 
and some perhaps below. If he be the real man, that place is 
his and his alone : he is a separate being and principle, and as 
such he can have no companion. 

This is no part of my story — or of my notes, or whatever 



6 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

form this writing may take, for I have not yet made its ac- 
quaintance — but merely a reflection on John Stuart Mill's 
autobiography, which I read coming down in the train. He 
thought he had found a mate, and labors touchingly to prove 
her such ; but to my mind he fails as touchingly. Only I was 
struck by the fact that he who was a great man, and I who 
am a little one, have both come very independently to the same 
conclusion — that for any man, great or little, it is at least im- 
possible to find companionship there where most usually it is 
sought. " There is," he says, " an inclination natural to 
thinking' ' (and he might have added, to unthinking) ' ' persons 
when the age of boyish vanity is once past for limiting their 
own society to a very few persons. General society as now 
carried on in England is so insipid an affair, even to the persons 
who make it what it is, that it is kept up for any reason rather 
than the pleasure it affords." To me, who was then on my 
way to limit my own society to three North Sea fishermen, this 
was very satisfactory, and I settled once for all that Mill was at 
any rate a social observer, if not a social philosopher. 

'' The society of three North Sea fishermen, indeed !" I 
think I hear some refined one exclaim. Yes, indeed, the 
society of three North Sea fishermen — of three men who have 
passed their lives among stern realities, who are ready and 
brave, true and intelligent, and who have not been demoralized 
by a daily consumption of platitude and sophistry. Not from 
Cowes are they, nor like the men of Cowes, who have been 
demoralized thus and by other means, but fresh from the 
Dogger, with all their rough honesty upon them. If I were in 
London I should be in contact with A and B and C, notorious 
and self -admitted imitations of a dishonest ideal. Are these 
not much better than they ? Yes, indeed ; and I am mistaken 
if they do not leave me purer and higher notions of society 
than any one of my three Londonners, infinitely superior per- 
sons though they be as the common scale of comparison goes. 
****** 

Why on earth will this stove not burn ? I need it badly 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 7 

enough, Heaven knows, for it is as cold to-night as the face of 
a great lady ; and the mere run hither down from Southamp- 
ton through the murk of the evening has chilled me to the 
bone. 

And withal somebody must have run down the Spit buoy 
again, for though I never went close to its proper place, and 
saw all the other buoys, we none of us made this. 

3|C ^ V '1^ '1^ »l* 

But I remember that I have not yet given an account of my- 
self and of these notes. I came down in the train with three 
strangers. One of them offered me a light, and said it was a 
fine day. That was not true, and if it had been true would 
not have been important. Nor would it have been more true 
or more important if I had known whither that man was going, 
and what his portmanteau contained. Yet these are the first 
questions people seem determined always to ask and to answer 
any man, instead of the last as they should be. 

How can I say who or what in the world I am ? I don't 
know — do you ? You have no doubt a form of words ready 
on your lips — *' M or N, as the case may be"; but words with- 
out ideas are mere abattis, trees without root ; of no further 
consequence until they have been converted into the form of 
some new idea. 

Certainly I am not a hero. Yet I am going, so far as I see, 
to talk of myself, which is, in fact, what we all always do, 
whether we know it or not. A very impertinent habit, no 
doubt, and quite indefensible ; and yet at the end of the ac- 
count, as the French say, what you and I most want to get at 
is a notion of me and of you, which is also what we get at, or 
even near, the least often. Otherwise we should perhaps hate, 
envy, and despise each other less than we do. Just think of 
the force of human sympathy. Any man who gets up at 
Charing Cross, and opens his mouth, will have a crowd of 
people about him before he has said two sentences ! 



8 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

Poole, Saturday, 9tli May, 1874. 
Ah ! it was a lovely sunrise this morning for those of us who 
saw it, and the outline of land and sea, of mast and rigging, 
pencilled themselves softly on the gray sky as the light stole 
after us down the Solent. And to think that there are people 
who live in houses, and lie abed of a morning ! 

****** 

I remember there was once a man who invented the principle 
of self-interest as sufficient for all mankind all through life. 
Jeremy, thou wast a noodle. Didst thou not see, dost thou 
not now see, that we are all of necessity mere trustees ? Here 
is Ned, for instance, roused up at three this morning, and now 
striving all he knows to make out that black buoy. Yes, I do 
pay him a salary, and as between us it may seem at first a mere 
affair of self-interest. But is he not a trustee for his old 
mother at Aldeburgh, to whom he is going to send a post- 
office order for one-pound-ten this very day, and also for his 
young woman, whom he intends some day to endow with the 
scanty bliss of a seaman's marital attentions — nay, even for the 
fabricator of those sea-boots and the Chinaman grower of that 
tea which makes me shudder, but which he gulps down scald- 
ing with so much gusto ? All for self ? What, even his 
young woman ? Then self has no longer a meaning, and we 

are stumbling as usual over words. 

****** 

Was there ever such a rich, bountiful, delightful climate as 
this maligned one of ours ? I know none, and don't believe 
there is any with so inexhaustible a play of light, shade, and 
atmosphere. Here, while I have been looking from my deck 
at this decayed, sordid town of Poole, have I seen in ten 
minutes at least half a dozen different cities in it, each with its 
particular tone of beauty, and all various. They say it is like 
Venice, wherein they are wrong, for it is far better and more 
beautiful to look at, and with far more, if with other, beauties 
than Venice. Not to live in, though — nor to sit for in Parlia- 
ment — but just to look at from the deck of a boat. 



FLOTSAM Al^D JETSAM. 9 

How strangely the mind of man is constituted ! Here is 
Bill, my equerry-in-waiting, groom of the chambers, and 
cordon hleu, quite unable to see that nothing will save one 
from losing all the bedclothes in the night except tucking them 
up. I have explained this to Bill, and shown him how it is 
connected with the eternal laws of physics that when a man 
rolls about with an unquiet spirit, clothes must go if they are 
not tucked in. I suppose he intends it as a hint to lie quiet. 
I will take it as such. 



Havre, Wednesday, 13th May. 
There are two situations in which a man feels that he is quite 
alone, and that he can look for help to no human being but 
himself. The one is on the back of a runaway horse, the 
other in command of his vessel at sea when he is running for a 
tidal harbor in a gale of wind, and finds he can't save his tide 
in and will have a lee shore to deal with. Woe betide him if 
he dare not then trust his own judgment ! Woe betide him 
indeed if he cannot readily form new plans ! On the whole, I 
think the runaway horse is the better place of the two. I saw 
a barge deep laden come out of Poole yesterday, and watched 
him going up Channel — I wonder how he fared in the breeze 
— and it was at the time a pleasure to think that we had a 
better craft under us than he. Poor fellow ! I dare say he 
thinks just as much of his skin as I do of mine, little as either 
of them is worth in the general scheme of creation ! 



The art of the true use of garlic is the whole secret of taste- 
ful cookery. Rub a crust of bread with garlic and put it in 
your salad, and the whole thing at once has a savor which 
nothing else would give it. And so with men. I know one, 
for example, who would be simply nothing were he not known 
for the profession of infidelity ; but having that, he is supposed 
to have a flavor of his own and is considered accordingly ; 



10 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

whereas in reality he has only been rubbed over with other 
men's garlic. 

****** 
How hard it is to do the very smallest thing precisely as it 
should be done ! Just go to the very centre of anchors and 
cordage and try to get a two-hundred weight Trotman and 
ninety fathom of seven-inch warp. It will make you respect 
failures for the rest of your life. 



CHAPTER II. 

Off Cape d'Antifer, 14th May, 1874. 
Some men are born lucky and others have luck thrust upon 
them. How many of us are there who pass our lives in run- 
ning away from our own happiness, and are never overtaken by 
it till both it and we are well-nigh exhausted ! Lucky are 
they who are brought to book by Fortune, who get a fall early 
in the race, and who are perforce compelled thenceforth to go 
limpingly and to give their good angel a chance. A great 
Grief has often made a great man, a little grief has still more 
often made a little one completely to fulfil that purpose in his 
existence which else he would have missed. Solomon was a 
wise man, yet it took him a long life and seven hundred wives 
to find out that there is nothing worth doing but to eat, drink, 
and make love, and enjoy the fruits of one's labor. Some of 
us unwise ones must indeed have had our luck thrust upon us 
to find it out while we could still do all these things. A 
splendid summer day, wooing the very coat off your back and 
the shoes off your feet, a fair wind, just enough if it lasts to 
take you to your port, and a dinner composed by the cunning- 
est cook in Havre, with nobody, not even the postman, to 
stand between you and your wildest fancies, these will com- 
pare — nay, they do being now present (for that is the test) 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 11 

compare — with any kind of luck I know in these days ; and 
certainly none of these would have been mine if I could have 
had my own way say four months ago. 

^ Tv TV 3f* T^ -i^ 

The curse of labor was a very short-sighted curse to inflict 
upon man, constituted as he is. Indeed it is no curse at all ; 
but rather the one only blessing in life, the source of all real 
content and the great consolation for all sorrows, and even for 
all worries. Of course one must have work that one can do, 
but that is a mere question of choice in a world where there is 
so much to do of so many various kinds ; and not a difficult 
question either, for almost anybody can do almost anything if 
they will but address themselves to it. The choice once 
made, what is there to equal or to come near to the delight 
there is in grappling with the work ; what moments arc there 
like those when, bracing your nerves and setting your teeth, 
you rejoice as a giant refreshed, to run the race before you 
and feel the distance disappearing beneath your feet ? Not the 
triumph of the victory, still less the repose on the other side 
the goal — for that is but a kind of death between the races in 
which alone you feel that you really live. I can understand 
those who work for the sake of the work, I can't understand 
those who work for the sake of the rest that is to follow. See 
the man who has " retired from business" of whatever kind — 
is not his first act to go into business of another kind ? He 
leaves selling cottons and takes to buying pictures and society. 
What then ? He has only exchanged a work he could do for 
one he cannot, and he will certainly gain no more but rather 
much less profit and glory in the one than in the other. 
****** 

I am persuaded that this world was organized for an entirely 
different set of creatures from those who inhabit it. Looking 
at this infinite multitude of stars above me, many of them cer- 
tainly, and all of them possibly, inhabited, I can well under- 
stand how easily the wrong set of inhabitants may have got 



1^ FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

into our Planet by mistake, just as in the old stage trick of 
putting the wrong letter in the envelope. ** The only thing 
that is at all decently done on earth," said a great man once to 
me, '' is the coming of the leaves, which we do at least get 
when we want shade ; all the rest is wrong ; for instance, the 
days are long in summer when, the sun being hot and the night 
pleasant, they ought to be short, while they are short in winter 
when the sun is so valuable that we want more, and the night 
so detestable that we want less of it. ' ' Look again at winds. 
If they were sensibly arranged we should have them blowing 
strongest on shore, where gales are of no great importance, 
while they would always be moderate at sea, instead of the 
reverse being the case. Then there are the tides, so arranged 
that they run strongest when they rise highest, whereas it 
would be manifestly better if they were to do so when they 
rise the least, because that would give one so much better a 
chance of getting into tidal harbors. 

The moral order of things is an old subject of complaint. 
Yet it only needs one reform in order to make them perfectly 
easy of treatment — that is a means of comparing moral capac- 
ity. For then we should have nothing more to do than to say 
that every man shall have all the enjoyment he is capable of 
containing, but that he shall not steal from other men's measures 
that which will not go into his, but only run over and be abso- 
lutely wasted. There is enough enjoyment in the world for all, 
and to spare, but your two-gallon man will get three, four, or 
five gallons more than can be of any kind of use to him, while 
your one-gallon man is perhaps empty altogether. 



Dieppe, 15th May, 1874. 
Why it should always blow half a gale of wind right on the 
shore whenever you are waiting your tide to get into these 
French harbors is another thing I should like to know. The 
only advantage I at present see in it is that it keeps you up all 
night hove-to off Cape d'Ailly, and furnishes you with the 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 13 

work and excitement of furling half your sails and double-reef- 
ing the rest. Which illustrates what I have already said, for 
now we are in I only feel rather tired and bruised with our 
knocking about, and have lost all interest in the weather. 
****** 

I fear the French are now at least beginning really to experi- 
ence the effects of the war upon their commerce. At Havre it 
is impossible to get freight of any kind for any vessels, and this 
port of Dieppe has not above five vessels in it where usually 
there are two or three hundred. Never did a place look so 
utterly deserted. I have just had my hair cut in order to talk 
about it, and this was the conversation that took place to a 
running accompaniment of scissor-clicking : 

*' C'est qu'on n'a pas de confiance dans la solidite du Gou- 
vernement, et alors les affaires ne marchent pas, comme mon- 
sieur voit.^* * 

" On avait cependant confiance dans 1' Empire." 

*' Oh, pour 9a, oui." 

" Et pourtant il n'etait pas bien solide." 

" Non, mais enfin on croyait tout de meme k sa solidit6." 

' ' Croyez done a la solidit6 du Septennat. ' ' 

'* Oh ! Monsieur !" 

****** 

A charming people are these French. The whole of the Hotel 
Royal turned out to welcome me when I went to dine there 
yesterday, asked me affectionately all round after my health 
and my doings, and provided me with a sauce Hollandaise, 

* "When people have no confidence in the strength of the Gov- 
ernment, then affairs do not get along, as monsieur sees." 

"Yet they had confidence in the Empire." 

"As for that, yes." 

"And nevertheless it was not very solid." 

"No, but upon the whole people did believe in its strength all the 
same." 

"Well, then, trust in the stability of the Septennat." 

' ' Oh, monsieui- ! ' ' 



14 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

which was like eating the kingdom of joy. I remember an 
old French gourmet once said to me, ' ' Jeune homme, qiiand 
vous aurez epuise les delices de I'amour, des affaires, de la 
politique et de la religion, vous finirez comme moi par vous 
rabattre sur la cuisine." I begin to fancy I must have already 
arrived at that stage. 

****** 
I never saw yet a woman so ugly that her lover could not 
believe in her beauty ; but I have seen one to-day so ugly 
that I doubt if she can believe in her own. I have loved 
many women, but never a beautiful one in all my life, and yet 
I have for the time always believed each to be the only one of 
Aer sex. 



CHAPTER TIT. 

On Board the Billy Baby, 

Dieppe, May 19th. 
We ought to be very grateful to Providence for having im- 
planted in each one of us that admirable conviction that / am 
the centre of the universe. If we, any of us, really believed 
that the world went round the sun instead of the sun going- 
round the world, or that we went round the world instead of 
the world going round us, life would be unendurable. As it 
is, all men and things are instruments and playthings for each 
one, even the most mean of us. I am not more intimately 
convinced that Bill was invented for my service than Bill is 
convinced that I was invented for his ; and he is right. I 
can't escape from revolving round Bill, and in all our dealings 
I am forced to feel his attraction and repulsion just as with all 
other bodies heavenly and earthly. His notions of making 
beds and coffee are my masters, and I have at last finally sub- 
mitted to them ; yet he has adopted my notion of brushing 
clothes and boots in part, and on the question of table napkins 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 16 

and clean knives and forks we act with about equal force on 

each other. So that Bill is now so far reduced as it were to 

the position of a mean sun, which is never quite in its right 

place, but which must be supposed to be there for practical 

purposes. 

****** 

Shoreham, 21st May, 1874. 
I wonder why in pictures of vessels at sea they are almost 
always represented as under full sail, with a fair breeze. In 
reality they should be represented close-hauled in a gale of 
wind, beating up for port against a head sea. It is a fine feel- 
ing to be proud of something, and I was proud of the Billy 
Baby last night when I saw her stripped like an athlete for the 
struggle, with storm jib, close-reefed mainsail, topmast struck, 
bowsprit reefed, and all snug, and felt her flying along under 
me within four points of that cruel north-easter — while my 
crockery was equally flying about the cabin below. Truly 
those that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in 
great waters — these see the works of the Lord and his wonders 
in the deep. And it was a wonder, indeed, to note the first 
red streaks of morn away to the north-east, and to see them 
grow into the blessed light of day. A beautiful and lovable 
world indeed if people would only come to the right places 

in it. 

****** 

The Billy Baby lies ignobly on her bilge inside the harbor, a 
scorn and a rebuke to the inhabitants of Shoreham, and pro- 
voking even the reflections of the cheap butcher who has come 
down to sell his joints by the sound of trumpet, forgetting 
that he too has a soul to be saved. For even Ned is but 
human, and turning up this narrow and, to all of us, unknown 
passage, he ran her ashore at four o'clock this morning. It 
should be a warning to every one never to go into strange places 
on a falling tide without a pilot — even when it is impossible to 
get one. It matters little ; the next tide will take us off, 
though at present there isn't a teacupful of water in the harbor 



16 FLOTSAM AN"D JETSAM. 

— and after all you must be somewliere. I know people who 
are in bed at this moment. 

****** 

There are things that would have been too much for the 
apostle John. Here is one such. When in Paris on Tuesday, 
I provided myself with a bunch of asparagus as big as a five- 
inch cable, and brought it down triumphantly to Dieppe for a 
Billy Baby dinner. Moreover, I got particular instructions 
from my valued friend Henri of the Cafe Bignon how to cook 
it. Now yesterday, struggling as we were with half a gale of 
wind, I, of course, could not dine at all to make any sense of 
it ; but to-day, lying tranquilly at the end of the Shoreham 
canal, within two miles of Brighton, I thought of my aspara- 
gus, and retailed to Bill all Henri's instructions as to its treat- 
ment, the prominent one of which was that it was to be lightly 
scraped before cooking. And now will anybody imagine my 
dismay to find that Bill, being ignorant of the ways and quali- 
ties of " grass," has scraped away all the heads, and cooked 
nothing but the white stalks ! I feel as if I had lost a day. 

****** 

The only revelation we have of things unseen must be such 
as we can derive through reasoning by analogy from things 
that are seen. Let us leave Invention and learn from Experi- 
ence. Thus doing we shall soon see that Thought at least is 
eternal. No idea ever dies. It may be thrown into the air, 
but the very winds will take it and plant it, maybe in a far dis- 
tant soil, to germ and grow into a tree, in the branches of which 
the birds of the air shall lodge, and the trunk of which some 
day a workman shall take and make one half of it into a god 
to fall down and worship, and with the other half shall kindle 
a fire. Neither is an idea ever born. Create it you cannot- 
You take other ideas, and by their apposition you build up out 
of them what you call another and a new one. Alas ! no^ it is 
not given to you. You will find that same idea in David or 
in Solomon, or else it is in the Vedas, in the Koran, in Socra- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 17 

tes, or Plato. Nor was it new when they gave it a form. It 
came to them as the sun comes, first indeed to those who ear- 
liest rise, but sooner or later to all. It rose upon them as it 
has to-day risen upon you, as to-morow it will rise on some 
other, and so to the end of time — which is the end of eternity. 

****** 

Portslade-by-Sea, 25th May. 

There is an idea which has been faced and accepted, adopted 
and propagated by all writers on civil organization from the 
greatest to the least, and which I am yet presumptuous enough 
to think absolutely false. It is this, that man in a state of 
nature is an animal utterly lawless and utterly solitary, a naked 
brute without a moral sentiment to clothe his immaterial, or a 
rag to cover his material nakedness, having no fellow-man in 
any kind of relation to him. It seems to me that that is, on 
the contrary, a conception of man in a purely unnatural state : 
for the first impulse of his nature is to clothe himself with a 
companion — even if it be but a woman — his spirit with an 
idea ; his body with a covering ; and his actions with a rule. 
Before he has done this he has not yet followed the imperious 
dictates of his nature ; when he has done it he no more ceases 
to be in a state of nature than an oak does because it was once 
an acorn, or than a swallow when it has built itself a nest, and 
flies away on its first winter journey to warmer climes. Find 
me a man placed on the earth, an acorn under it, or a swallow 
above it, content to remain as they are, and I will admit that 
the state of nature is a state preceding the effort to follow the 
dictates of nature. Till then, never. 

This then being so, what becomes of all the elaborate theo- 
ries and systems of polity and economy that have been built on 
the erroneous notion I have cited ? ^ What becomes of the 
materialist and the self-interested conceptions (however modi- 
fied by " enlightenment"), all these being founded on the as- 
sertion that all law, all society, all intellectual or moral motions 
of man are mere human inventions, ingeniously and for a pur- 



18 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

pose embroidered on to the original man of whom they formed 
no part ? Why, they disappear, are extinguished, condemned, 
lost and gone forever. Let us more rationally — ^jes, more 
rationally — believe that man in a state of nature would be in a 
state of perfect sociability, ideality, and Law, and that he falls 
short of that only because he is so far not in a state of nature. 
****** 

When you see a man drowning before you, do you hold that 
you have done your whole duty to him because you have paid 
your yearly subscription to the Humane Society ? I trow not. 
And now about the poor. Shall we say when the wretched 
cries for alms, that we have paid our poor-rates ? Are we to 
reply that his claim to a living share of the earth's fruits is a 
claim on the whole of society, and that we have discharged our 
quota ? Not so. I admit that this man who has done a day's 
work, and created for me a slight commodity, has a claim on 
me for his wage. Yet he has a claim only on me, for the com- 
modity is for my own sole use. Shall I then refuse him whose 
claim is not only upon me but upon all my fellows as well ? If 
so, I declare society bankrupt along with myself. 

****** 

To-day is Whit-Monday, and I see a string of seven om- 
nibuses filled with people vulgar, and probably imperfectly 
washed, jaunting along the road on an excursion, the while 
they affront the air with many various songs, having only this 
in common — that they are all out of tune. Thanks to heaven 
I do not know them, and I can therefore rejoice that they in 
their way rejoice. And now if only one of them, through the 
sight of new objects, shall get an idea into his or her head, if 
merely that cornet-player shall discern dimly the harmonies of 
these dark piles planted in the blue water, of these yellow masses 
of pine awned with soft gray sky, and crowned with fleecy 
chaplets of cloud — why the day will be a profitable one to him, 
and maybe through him to all mankind. 



FLOTSAM Al^D JETSAM. 19 

I once loved a woman. I held her for the best, the truest, 
the purest, and the strongest of God's creatures, and I could 
not endure to be near her for the doubts that arose every in- 
stant whether she really were all this. I love her now no more. 
I know her for a poor make-believe ordinary person ; and now 
her society is just as pleasant to me as that of any other human 
creature — neither more nor less. 

****** 

This is an ungenerous world. Last night I set my trammel, 
thinking to catch at least a plate of fish for breakfast. This 
morning I found that somebody had hauled it in the night, 
taken out all the fish, and cast the net ashore on the bank. I 
cannot approve of that. The fish no doubt were as much his 
as mine, but considering that the net was mine alone, he might 
have left me half the take. 



CHAPTER IV. 

On Liberty, June 1. 
Bill having given me a week's leave to go and see my mam- 
ma and my young woman, I had a good cry over leaving the 
frigate, and took my departure to be among those incompre- 
hensible people who choose to live ashore when they might 
have a comfortable ship for half the money, and little more than 
twice the trouble. What a strange twist this is in men's minds 
that makes them all seek their pleasure in doing what they can't 
do well, and leaving what they can so do as a tiresome busi- . 
ness, only to be done under dire compulsion ! Whether there 
is anything beyond the bare sweeping of a crossing that / can 
do I know not, but it is clear to me thaf at any rate 1 can never 
be but a very poor sailor-man, and I am anmsed with myself 
to find that playing at sailors is nevertheless my most cherished 
delectation. I am sure if I only go on long enough I shall 
fancy myself quite a salt. What curious humbugs we all are ! 

^ % '^ % H^ '^ 



20 , FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

The art of war consists in knowing when to run away. So 
does the art of life. For it is always to be remembered that 
in battle both sides are all the time in a terrible fright, and that 
the question on which hangs the fate of the day is not which 
side is most brave, but which is least frightened. Therefore a 
good general who doubts the relative capacity of his troops to 
stand fright, will judiciously run before he meets the enemy, 
and while he can still do so under pretence of making a scien- 
tific ulterior combination. I once knew a man who had been 
disgracefully handled by a woman. He confided in me, used 
very strong and very proper language as to her baseness, and 
told me that he had taken steps to meet her under circum- 
stances which would enable him to show all the contempt and 
disgust he felt for her, and how thoroughly he had been cured 
of his deception. I advised him on the contrary to run. He 
would not, and now he is a married and miserable man. 
4: « ^ * ^ % 

2d June. 
I have seen a minster which has made me ask myself once 
again how people can believe the common fable of the histori- 
ans that the English were up to two hundred years ago a poor, 
uncultivated, half-savage people. This cathedral represents an 
amount of wealth, of labor, of sentiment, of loving art, and of 
devotion which ten Englands, and the natives of the Continent 
to boot, could not produce in these days. There are the 
pulses, the sinews, nay the very heart and life of thousands in 
those aisles, and the whole soul of a man in every touch of the 
chisel on those sculptures. Are we really richer, do we really 
work more effectually, are our aims higher and our feelings 
stronger and purer than in those so-called barbarous times ? 
Then let us build but one edifice equal to this and I will 

believe it. 

* ***** 

I never knew a single-minded woman. Their ideas are 
always married to themselves — and sometimes polygamously to 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 21 

somebody else besides. An abstract notion or principle is quite 
beyond them. The other morning going ashore to buy some 
eggs for Bill, I asked the woman who sold them if she could 
assure me that they were fresh-laid. " Bless you, sir," she 
replied, " I wouldn't sell them for fresh-laid if they wasn't." 
****** 

The necessity of having in all things an immutable, invaria- 
ble standard that can be appealed to, has always been held to 
be, and is in fact, manifest. Some people believe in the Bible, 
some in the Pope, some again mount higher and believe, as it 
were, through the Bible and the Pope, in the Divine truths of 
which they are the exponents. If we would be exact, allow- 
ance must be made, in every case of exposition of higher law, 
for the deviation of the material instrument. But what if it is 
believed that there is no deviation at all ? What if the vessel 
is navigated in that belief, and one day it is discovered that the 
bearings of things are all at sixes and sevens ? The other day, 
to my horror, I found I had got Cape d'Ailly on a bearing by 
my hitherto unsuspected compass, which would if it were a 
true bearing have put me a couple of miles up the country on 
the French land, whereas in fact I was at sea. Which brings 
me to this : that it is a thousand pities we cannot " swing" 
the Bible, the Pope, and other great standards, find out, as I 
am about to do with ihe " Billy Baby's" compass, what their 
exact deviation is with their head in any given point, and so 
make a table of corrections for future reference. 

****** 

3d June. 

Never leave the side of a woman you love. In a day she will 
cease to regret you, in two she will replace you by somebody 
else, in three she will refuse to believe tTiat you exist. Here 
have I been away from Billy Baby for a week, and I can 
eat and drink as though nothing had happened. 

****** 

What strangers we all are to each other on the face of this 



22 FLOTSAM Ai^D JETSAM. 

earth ! and how certain we all are to get credit precisely for 
the qualities we do not possess, and to be reproached with fail- 
ings from which we are free ! How many men are called su- 
percilious because they are timid, ill-mannered because they are 
shy, ill-natured because they love their fellows too well not to 
seek to benefit them at their own cost ! How many again are 
pronounced generous because they are selfish, wise because they 
have stolen other men's ideas, and able because they have 
placed themselves under other men's conduct ! I find the peo- 
ple at the various ports I put into all call me " captain" 
already, and I expect to end as admiral. 

* * * * * * 

4th June. 
It is always the leaders of men who play them false. It is 
the judge who perpetrates injustice, the priest who invents im- 
piety, the minister who misgoverns his country, the popular as- 
sembly which betrays its choosers. This is inevitable when it 
is a trade to judge, to pray, to govern, and to talk ; for the 
trader looks only to the profit and permanence of his trade, and 
cares nothing for the wares he sells or the customer who buys 
them. You find men to pass Adulteration Acts to prevent 
chicory being mixed with coffee, sand with sugar, and water 
with milk, yet the idea has never been so much as conceived 
that it is a fraud to mix profit with public duty. Nevertheless 
this is at the bottom of all public troubles. 

* * * * * * 

The most delicious, the most fascinating and artistic woman^s 
dress I ever saw was one of which I caught a glimpse in Paris 
lately, made of black glazed calico. It belonged to, or at any 
rate it was on, a lady who was stepping out of a brougham into 
a shop in the Rue de la Paix. I saw it but for three moments, 
but I shall never forget it. And the most beautiful face and 
figure, the most finished grace, the most unaffected wit and 
frankness, and the best manners I ever knew belong at this mo- 
ment to a young lady who lives, we will say in Nottingham, 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 23 

and dresses on £20 a year. If she were mine I would make 
her into a company, advertise her, and benefit many share- 
holders besides myself. Being as she is more rare and precious 
than many mines, I shall carefully say nothing about her but 
this, that the London drawing-rooms are poor places to look 
for anything of really superior kind. 



CHAPTER y. 

Off Beachy Head, Saturday, 6th June. 
There is a use in everything no doubt, but I really should 
like to know the practical use of fogs in this well-regulated 
world. It is not that I doubt their use, but only that I should 
like to be able to explain it to the misbelieving advocate of fine 
clear weather — such as Ned. This same mania for explaining 
everything, the determination to bring down every mystery of 
the universe to the level of Pinnock's catechism, is probably at 
the bottom of a good half of the blunders of mankind. We 
have applied the universal rule of three to, and made a net re- 
suit of profit and loss out of, most things. Even religion is 
captured and set to work to make the best of both worlds. 
Are we forever to pretend to seek out the Almighty to perfec- 
tion, and not believe in his works till we can measure them 
with our foot-rule, or his laws till we have written them in 
articles thirty-nine or more ? Should we not rather be content 
to leave some few things in mystery ? I also could invent a 
use for fogs if I chose. I could repeat what some wiseacre has 
invented as to their causes in and their influence on the atmos- 
phere. Nobody would be the wiser, though somebody might 
be the more presumptuous for it. I prefer to rejoice that here 
is one more of the many things I don't understand. It is con- 
trary to my little interests for the moment, since it hides even 
Beachy Head light from me. But the first thing we have to 



24 FLOTSAM Aiq"D JETSAM. 

learn — and this is one thing the sea teaches — is that we are each 
of us utterly unimportant atoms in the universe. 



Dover Bay, Sunday, June Ith. 

My man Tom believes that the right way to land on the beach 
in a broken sea is to pull the boat before it as fast as possible, 
and as he gave me a ducking by so doing to-day, I have been 
explaining to him that the right way is to back her against each 
wave, so as to keep her on the outer or safe side of each. 
Tom cannot receive this, being accustomed to get ashore at all 
hazards as fast as he can ; but I have explained to him that the 
sea will carry him there quite fast enough, and with all the 
more safety for his pulling gently against it. 

Is it not absurd to think that we have had rulers and govern- 
ors in whom men still believe (Lord Palmerston, the overrated, 
was one), who opposed the making of the Suez Canal, and 
spent five times what would have made it in such erections as 
the Alderney fortifications, the Spithead forts, and the Martello 
towers ? Nay, have we not still rulers and governors who are 
allowed to build ironclads, to support volunteer corps, and to 
maintain the Declaration of Paris ? It is charitable to suppose 
that we have all gone mad. But it is impossible to read what 
has been said and written on public affairs by the side of what 
is now said and written without being struck by this immense 
difference, that while formerly the speaker or writer used the 
language of an authoritative guide, he now uses that of an anx- 
ious follower. Formerly he laid down principles, and insisted 
upon them ; now he seeks a humor and flatters it. Then he 
was a stern, unbending schoolmaster, knowing more than his 
scholars, and walking among them not unfrequently with the 
rod; now he is a flycatcher, producing any one of the various 
catchemaliveos most in vogue. No politician or writer ever 
now sets himself to expose or to oppose a false principle which 
has taken ahold, or a delusion which has any considerable num- 
ber of supporters — for they are not leaders, but mere venders 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 25 

of themselves and their prints ; and being so they will supply 
forts, ironclads, volunteers, or anything else that may be de- 
manded by two or three strong-lunged lunatics gathered to- 



gether. 



I have two Queen Anne silver candlesticks on board with 
me, just to remind me that I was born in a civilized country ; 
and they are not without their influence even on Bill, who 
cleans them lovingly in odd anchored moments. He puts them 
on the table with something of veneration and respect, which 
I am sure he never felt for the tin and brass of his home, and al- 
though, I am convinced, he must know that a candle would give 
just as good a light from those as from these. 

I cannot understand Voltaire's hatred for priests. I saw a 
country parson to-day, and I did not hate him at all. I said 
to myself, " There is a most respectable and useful man, if 
only he lives in his village, if he succors the widow and the 
fatherless, maintains in himself a local standard of cultivation 
and refinement, and limits his preaching to an enforcement of 
the decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount." Joseph de 
Maistre says there is no religion absolutely false, for that every 
one contains some grains of eternal truth. So indeed it is. A 
religion is in fact merely the form under which man has repro- 
duced and represented the Divine law as he best could. To 
mock at it because it is not in all respects perfect, is as though 
you should mock at man because he is not divine. 

* * * * ^ * 

It were worth while to live at sea were it only to see the sky 
and the stars. To think that each one of them has perhaps 
peoples and nations, constitutions and ministers, and that to 
you and to me they are all together but one mere speck of blue 
light in the black canopy of the heavens ! Possibly at this 
very moment some mariner sailing over the seas of the pole- 
star is taking an observation of this planet of ours figuring in 
his system of constellations as the hind leg of a donkey ; if, 
indeed, our existence has yet been discovered there. For there 



26 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

are stars which are not even so much as a speck of bhie light 
to us, all our telescopes notwithstanding, and notwithstanding, 
too, that they may be the very bodies whose attraction just 
keeps us in our balanced place. 

Some of the men who have the greatest influence upon the 
history of their country, and the welfare of their race, own 
names which have never met the eye of the most inveterate 
newspaper reader. I know two or three such whose existence 
is only so much as suspected by a select few, who will not be 
found iu any biographical dictionary, and who are yet at this 
moment moulding the destinies of Europe. 

****** 

Tuesday, 9th June. 

Coming into the river from the sea makes one understand 
how a shy man who has always lived in the country feels when 
he is one day bundled into London society. Surely we shall 
never be able to move among all these craft ; surely these craft 
themselves are not real. Manifestly they are not intended for 
service of any real kind. Here is a barge heavy-laden with 
hay down to the water's edge, merely drifting with the tide ; 
there is another gaudily decked with green bulwarks, a red til- 
ler, and a blue and yellow sprit ; here again is a shoal of small 
craft all legs and wings, full of men more carefully got up to 
represent real salts than if they had passed their lives off Cape 
Horn ; and here is a party on a steamer, packed as close as 
herrings, and supposed to be having the greatest enjoyment. 
Surely I have seen all these things before in London society. 
Here is a gentleman in shirt-sleeves and beaver-hat, leaning 
over the tiller of a barge. As he passes us he looks with a con- 
temptuous eye at our too fishing- boat-like cut, and asks, 
" Well, I'm blowed. Where did you pick her up ?" This 
also, I think, I have heard before. 

****** 

Greenwich, Wednesday, 10th June. 

I am anchored just opposite a celebrated inn at Greenwich. 
It is a lovely evening. The windows of the hotel are all open, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 27 

and T see in them perhaps fifty people who all think they have 
been dining. Poor wretches ! they don't even know the differ- 
ence between that and eating. Some of them may have heard 
that there is a difference, but they believe it to be solely in the 
matter of cost, whereas it lies in palate and in trouble. With- 
out these you may eat whitebait devilled in all the colors of the 
rainbow, whiting pudding, (what a horror !) flounder souches 
and broils to the end of time ; but you will not dine. With these 
you may linger over the simple chop fresh-marked with the 
gridiron, toy with an omelet, a couple of tomatoes, a basket of 
fresh-gathered strawberries, and end with the only salad in 
England and the only coffee in Europe — all prepared by one to 
whom such things were as the Greek particles a month ago. 

Yet there are those poor people who think they have dined, 
and beneath them are three naked little boys diving for coppers 
which they in the fulness of their generosity — or rather in the 
generosity of their fulness — throw out. Truly we are a brutal 
people, we English. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Greenwich Reach, 15th June. 
To go down the river and back again, just to pass rapidly 
through as one passes through France or Italy, or other such 
low-born countries, is what many of us have done, and found 
that there is nothing in it beyond a number of ships lying in 
unintelligible places, and doing unintelligible things for un- 
known purposes, and a large number of dirty people not within 
the pale of humanity. But to live here, even for a few days, 
is a very different matter. I begin now tt) see that the real. 
London, the great throbbing, restless energy which makes the 
capital, and England too, what they are, is all on this side of 
London Bridge. The barges working up the river with the 
young flood, twenty of them in this Reach all one on top of 



3B FLOTSAM AK"D JETSAM. 

the other, yet never breaking an egg ; the thousand slender 
wands that have pointed to every zenith in the celestial con- 
clave, lying clothed in their cobweb garment of cords ; the 
chimneys, the clamor, the high-pressure pufi5ngs, the uncouth 
tide-enslaved lighters ; nay, even the toiler, even on Sunday 
when the unfrequent blacking is on his monstrous hobnailed 
pachydermatous boot, and the paper collar and lavender tie are 
round his neck ; all these seem to represent something far more 
real, far more satisfactory, and far more representative of the 
better England than that ostentation of purse-proud servility 
into which it all passes through the crucible of Temple Bar. 
Yet most of us know nothing of all this, can see no beauty in 
it, and would, if we could, sink it in the bottom of the sea, as 
an uncouth, ungainly, rude spectacle to which the finer sort of 
mankind are not to be brought at any cost. 

How thoroughly the belief — once so strong — has died out, 
that Englishmen are all men of the same nation, brothers of the 
same family, bound to stick close together against the world if 
need be ! We are now, it appears, brothers only of those of 
our " class." The " gentlemen" are of one race, the mid- 
dUng classes of another, the working classes of yet another, 
while the women are of no race at all, but only of that of their 
children, cousins, and husband, or lieutenant male, as the case 
maybe. And then the gentlemen and the other '' classes" 
make themselves up into infinite subdivisions, each of which is 
as alien to the other as all are to each. So that we are all 
strangers and enemies to each other in the same land, with no 
sentimental ties and no recognized obligations to bind us to- 
gether, and a whole world of interests to separate us. I have 
heard of a house in that condition. 

Ht % ^ ^ * ^ 

I love to linger over those old prints of naval battles fought 
when England could meet and defeat the banded nations of 
Europe. Here is one of them in a gilt frame, stained and 
soiled, a wreck probably from some master mariner's household 
goods, hanging in an old clothes shop — a crowded, highly- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 29 

wrought engraving, defective in many points of art, but stirring 
the blood nevertheless. A principal figure in it is that of a 
sailor nailing his ship's colors to the stump of the mast while 
he is shot at by a hundred of the enemy's small-arm men. 

So even this most magnificent and moving pile of Greenwich 
has been taken away from the poor sailor, who was to spend his 
old age in it to all time according to the intent of its founders, 
and has been made into a college for the richer naval officer. 
The perpetual old shameful tale of taking from him that hath 
not and giving to him that hath. Thus did they three hundred 
years ago with those lands of the Church which had equally 
been set apart forever to the pious uses of God and the poor. 
I wonder who has fingered all the rich Greenwich endowments, 
shares, parts of prize-money, and others. I know we are told 
that the poor sailor is to have a money-pension given to him in 
lieu of his palace-home, just as the other poor have had indoor 
and outdoor relief in lieu of their own property and inherit- 
ance. But what is to replace that feeling that every English 
seaman who sailed up the Thames once had that here was his 
home, here in this most splendid shape the expression of the 
great value a great nation set upon his services ? 



Tuesday, 16th June. 
'^ What the gridiron do you mean by running into me ?" 
*' Ask my mamma, you friend of mankind — you should get 
out of the way." 

Such is the account, so far as words go, of an interview I 
had this morning with a professor of navigation in charge of a 
barge laden with hay. He had run into me with all his 
weight, and the strength of a spring tide, thrown me from one 
end of my cabin to the other, and startled tne out of a peaceful 
calculation of azimuth on to the deck. Beyond this, and 
knocking off a piece of copper as large as Mr. Gladstone's in- 
tellect, he had done me no harm ; in fact he had rendered me 
a service, for he gave me an excuse for feeling injured and 



30 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

being angry for five minutes — which is one of the greatest hix- 
uries I know. 

Once there was a man — not indeed once only, for the adven- 
ture is being daily renewed — who suddenly became aware that 
his friend was a traitor, and his sweetheart a jilt. He com- 
plained bitterly, declared that there never was an injury like 
his, and swore that he must die without remedy. Yet if you 
look him over now, but five minutes as it were after the shock, 
you will find it hard to discover where he has even had a rub 
of his paint. 

****** 

Thursday, 18th June. 
If ray eye really were at the surface of the sea my rail would 
appear far higher than it now does, and the sun lower ; so that 
this correction for Dip by which I bring my sun a few seconds 
lower than I observe him from the deck, is in truth a testi- 
mony to the fact that he is higher than my rail, as it ,is also a 
proof that as one enlarges one's horizon, that which is in itself 
low appears lower, while that which is really high appears 
higher. 

A graceless Frenchman once said : ' ' Les grands ne nous par- 
aissent grands que parce que nous sommes a genoux — levons 
nous !" * Whereby he meant not the truly but the apparent 
great. 

Once I knew a bald man, a man in public life, who was too 
old and too wise for words, very far removed from my time, 
and for whom I felt the respect one entertains for the genera- 
tion of fathers and uncles possessed of infinite wisdom and 
knowledge. I remember I was quite astounded when he mar- 
ried, and thought it hard on his wife. Now that a few years 
have passed I have become aware that he is not old at all, but 
of a mere decent and reasonable age, which quite entitles him 
to give his own name to his children. Moreover I have no 

* The great appear to ns great because we are kneeling— let us rise. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 31 

longer the slightest respect — but contrariwise, a great contempt 
— for his public self and work. 

I knew also, at the same time, a thinker, who seemed to mo 
superior certainly to most men, but not so very greatly supe- 
rior. He has now so risen in my estimate that I open the rec- 
ords of his thought with fear and trembling lest I fail to seize it. 

****** 

Reading a law case of the time of Edward I,, I find that be- 
fore the Conquest one Hugh de Longchamp — ' ' tient play de la 
coronne, e aveit four^es, et p7'it redempcion de genz a la raort 
juges, par reson deu maner^^ had pleas of the Crown, and had 
gallows, and took ransom of men condemned to death, by rea- 
son of his manor. 

Is it not strange that men should be found who can amass a 
fortune out of the blood and bone of their fellows, and who 
yet thoroughly believe that they have no duties to fulfil tow- 
ard them ? I know a good dozen who, finding themselves 
in a strong capitalist castle, have taken from hundreds — nay, 
from thousands — that lifetime of toil, which is all the toiler's 
wealth, and who will calmly stand by and see the executioner 
Hunger step in to make an end of what little life there is left 
in them — answering, if they be questioned, that the right of 
grace, if anywhere, is in the master of the workhouse. 
Surely, this is breaking the bargain. 

****** 

The Thames Conservancy have a way of punishing an offend- 
ing master of a barge by taking a cloth out of his mainsail, 
which is to that extent a diminution of his sailing-power, and 
consequently of his profits, always felt. One passed me to- 
day who had scarcely any mainsail left — evidently a hardened 
sinner of some kind. * 

The Jews are the most persuasive race in the world, and I 
fancy that when King John pulled their teeth out one after the 
other, on their refusal to part with their moneys, it was in or- 
der to diminish the seductive flow of their speech. What 



32 FLOTSAM AN^D JETSAM. 

now if we should take to that again ? What if we were to 
draw a tooth from every minister convicted, in the usual way, 
by a majority of the Commons, of having ill-administered his 
country's afiEairs ? That would in some measure replace the 
rusty old weapon of impeachment at which everybody laughs 
nowadays. For it is no longer held to be a crime in a man to 
betray his country for the sake of his " party " — which is the 
modern word for himself. 



To have the sky for your only philosopher — to be read as 
you may be able to read it — the sun, moon, and stars for your 
only guides, aud the sea for your only companion, is of all 
things the most delicious when the sky writes fair weather in 
plain characters, when the sun and the moon and the stars tell 
you clearly where you are, and when the sea is in an amiable 
mood. But when the sky speaks angrily, when the heavenly 
bodies refuse to speak at all, and the sea turns into an inveter- 
ate and pitiless foe — then I fear them all, and regret bitterly 
that I ever left my fast moorings in London. I have known 
men who maintained that they had never felt fear. I am not 
of those. I confess that whenever I see Death about me I am 
horribly afraid of him — and I have seen him in more than one 
shape, always with the same effect. But that same sinking of 
the heart into the boots, and the raising of it again to exertion 
by a mere dead determined pull, that is not without pleasure ; 
and the more restless — or in other words the better — kind of 
men have always placed their enjoyment in it. It is enough to 
make one believe that fear is one of the chief luxuries of life ; 
and, in truth, there is nothing in existence equal to the sweet- 
ness of sailing within an ace of the greatest possible danger and 
yet coming off untouched. 

Our great contemporary professors of religion have made a 
capital error in suppressing eternal torment out of their system, 
as all they do who admit that those of any other way of think- 
ing than their own can escape it. If a religion does not make 



FLOTSAM AN^D JETSAM. 33 

you feel that it has enabled you to sail close round destruction 
and yet to weather it, men will content themselves with natural 
philosophy. 



CHAPTER YII. 

Greenwich, Monday, June 22. 

*' There's a lovely coffin — quite the last thing — the new 
High Church pattern — very stylish — polished ellum, all of it — 
very fine figure, too — no, not the gentleman, the wood I mean — 
you see this is one of those jobs that must be done, and sharp, 
this hot weather ; that's why I'm rather behind with yours. 
Very stylish, isn't it, sir?" Wherewith the joiner put his 
head aside, looked at his production through the screwed-up 
corners of his eyes, and slowly rubbed his hands one in the 
other as one modestly conscious of having achieved a real work 
of art, and content to look to posterity for his reward. 

I do hope nobody will put me into polished elm when I die. 
I would much rather somebody even raised an Albert Memorial 
to me ; that would at least serve as a warning-beacon to show 
people forever the kind of structure they should not build. I 
can understand a man wishing to see the immaterial part of him 
preserved and reproduced — that desire is the better counterpart 
of the desire to procreate and leave children — but the notion of 
making much of the material part when it has ceased to be the 
temple of the spirit is beyond me. 

****** 

" A fiddle is as good as ten men on a purchase" is a re- 
ceived axiom on every man-of-war, and yet we are all aware 
that the force of a fiddle cannot be translated into any known 
formula of mechanics. 

Also there was once a man who lived to threescore years, 
and was at that age " made a fool of," as people said, by a lit- 
tle girl of seventeen ; but, as should really have been said, had 



34 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

made a fool of himself in living so long and never till then 
finding out that he had a soul as well as a body. 

****** 

They say you may tow a frigate with a silken hair if only 
you once get her started. At any rate there is a little insect of 
a man perched upon that huge lighter, and looking, as one 
would say, ridiculously incapable of producing even the small- 
est effect upon her, yet managing to thread his way without a 
touch through all this mass of shipping. Of course he has the 
tide with him, but that any man may have twice a day. 

How little can one do, or does one do — how wretched are the 
efforts one makes in comparison with the great thirst and eager- 
ness within one ! There are moments when a man feels that 
he could embrace the whole world in his grasp and leave the 
trace of his fingers all round it. Think what a little it requires 
after all to move this poor vacillating, nicely-balanced humanity 
of ours ! What a little ! A mere accident — may be even a 
trace of disease — in the processes of that brain tissue, a move- 
ment of heaven-born sympathy with one of the outside spectra, 
or even a grosser coupling with it of sordid self-interest — and 
in due course of time an idea is born that shall change the face 
of the earth, and even to the least incident of the smallest life 
of those that dwell therein. What an effect and what a cause ! 
Also, what a courage should not this give to the most obscure 
of us who would deal with the mad phenomena we have about 
us ! And here is such an one, with this chance open to him 
also, not stretching forth toward it, but gone aside into by- 
paths leading he knows not whither. Who and what is any 
individual that he should seek himself, or rather lose himself, 
in such strange ways ? 

****** 

Wednesday, June 24. 

The Thames is the only great riv^er in the world where there 
are no regulations for traffic, and nobody to enforce them. 
This morning I saw an elephantine lighter floating up stream 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 35 

without a soul on deck, and as a river policeman was passing 
me I pointed it out to him, and remarked, feelingly, that that 
was how accidents happened. " Bless you, sir ! they always 
do it," said he, " and we have no power to interfere, because 
it is the Thames Conservancy who have the control of the nav- 
igation." Why, then, 1 should like to know, don't they con- 
trol it ? or rather, why should not their business be done by 
the Waterman's Company, expanded and reorganized to that 
end ? It seems ridiculous, when there are ancient bodies al- 
ready in existence, to create new ones that will not do their 
duty. 

I was thinking of these things when for the second time a 
lighter carefully ran into me, though, thanks to my look-out, 
very tenderly and gently this time, and again provoked me to 
a free use of river-language. 

John Brown, the black man's hero of Harper's Ferry, when 
he was taken said that he was of more use for hanging than 
for any other purpose ; and so it proved, for it was his hanging 
that brought about the emancipation of the slaves. All the 
same, it would have been better for John Brown if it could 
have been effected at a less cost. 

****** 

We have all heard yarns of shipwrecked and compassless 
mariners who have steered a course by a star, and got safely to 
port ; which sounds very well till you know that the stars, like 
the sun and moon, rise on one side the earth and set on the 
other, so that a man who steered by them would be varying his 
course every minute. Even the Pole-star, which is the best of 
them in these latitudes, varies a little. But, in fact, the stars 
are of no use at all unless you can correct them by the sun. 

We are asked to believe in and to follow our public men, on 
the ground that they are honest and reliable. Yet does it not 
appear that they are each and all of them working for their 
own interest — or that of their party, which is the same thing ? 
When you find a man of commercial spirit willing to pay large 
sums of money in order that he may be allowed to perform a 



36 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

public duty, you may be sure it is that he means it not to be a 
public duty at all but a private gain of some sort, whether of 
dignity or of cash matters not. The great concern is to know 
where each of them is in his career at the given moment, and 
which way he is tending. Then he may be of some use to 
those who are capable of applying the corrections — not other- 
wise. 

* * * -^ * % 

A cautious foreign ambassador in London once wrote to his 
Court, " Some say that the Prince is dead, some say that he is 
not — I agree with neither of them." 

Some people say that the hours of drinking are too long, 
others that they are too short. Mr. Cross agrees with both. 



I have been reading some old books which give strange ac- 
counts of a people rich and contented, bold and law-abiding, 
of " vileins" who had lands and brought actions (ay, and won 
them) against their lords for infringement of their rights, of 
mean men well clad and thoroughly fed, and of nobles who 
kept open table for the homeless and the hungry. 

There was once a little island called England which seemed 
destined to fill the world with its name. It was inhabited 
by a sturdy race of men, not easy to govern, but endowed with 
certain noble qualities which made all mankind look upon them 
with respect. They owned no masters, temporal or spiritual. 
They had humbled France and Spain ; they had broken the 
power of the Papacy ; they had dethroned their own kings 
many a time, and bound their nobles in chains of iron. They 
fought for ideas — even among themselves — they carried their 
heads high, and their envoys walked as men of a greater stature 
among the " beggarly" peoples of the Continent. This was 
three hundred years ago — only three hundred years ; only ten 
generations ago — and England is now no more. An aristoc- 
racy contrived to invent the fiction of actual possession of the 
soil, then repudiated its burdens, and finally contrived to 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 37 

pawn the nation to a company of adventurers as a bribe to be 
allowed to retain their hold over it. The " glorious Revolu- 
tion" was accomplished, " Parliamentary Government" was 
established, taxation was imposed, and thenceforward English- 
men at large became mere cash-paying and burden-bearing 
animals, to be used for the common purposes of the new alli- 
ance. Between the allies the bargain has been faithfully ad- 
hered to, and he who runs may read its results. Materially 
and morally, England has become a contradiction. Never did 
her people produce so large a proportion of the fruits of the 
earth, and yet never did they enjoy them so little. Enormous 
wealth by the side of, or rather built upon, enormous pauper- 
ism, the richest country in the world inhabited by the poorest 
people of the earth, the disgust of satiety mocking the pangs 
of hunger — such is the astounding spectacle that we present 
just now in material matters. Morally things are as bad — they 
could not, indeed, be much worse. All faith, all generosity is 
gone. The privileged, secure in their possessions, look with 
contempt on those noble qualities in which their privilege — or 
some of it — took its rise. The peer and the pedlar have com- 
bined against the proletarian. They will allow him to live, 
because without him they could not live ; but that is all. If 
he tries to better his condition by strikes according to all the 
canons of political economy, that is pronounced flat rebellion, 
and straightway a law is passed to curb his evil desires for food 
and raiment in sufficiency. If he asks for education (alas ! 
what education is more pregnant with teaching than that of 
keeping a wife and family on thirteen shillings a week I), 
they give him theological minerals and literary stones — just 
enough to make him fear the parson and honor the squire. If, 
in despair, he would take his two hands tg freer climes, he is 
told that it is his duty to starve here in case it may be worth 
the while of the pedlars to turn him into coin. Poor English- 
man ! it were well for him had he never been born. Unhap- 
pily he is born, and must make up his mind — such of it as is 
left to him — as to the attitude he means to adopt toward the 



38 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

men and things of his country. Can we wonder if that atti- 
tude is one of discontent, distrust, and hostility ? 

****** 

Thursday, June 25. 

There was an Irishman who said that he thought the moon 
infinitely more valuable than the sun, " because," said he, 
" you only have the sun in the day, when you don't want it, 
whereas you have the moon at night, when you do want it." 
Nevertheless, I feel convinced we should be in great difficulties 
if that ingenious piece of mechanism, the sun's lower limb, 
were to be taken out of the system of the universe, say for one 
day. Nay, even Sirius would leave a void that would be felt, 
for he, too, is a necessary part of the system. 

Idleness is the root of all newspapers. On taking them up 
again, after an interval of abstention, two things are clear to 
me. First, that I have lost absolutely nothing by losing the 
daily papers ; secondly, that the world to which I have come 
back for a time is, as represented in them, a world of lunatics. 
1 find the British Parliament, charged, as we fondly believe, 
with the vital interests of the empire, still engaged on liquor 
laws and Plimsoll, the Mordaunt case revdved, a lady of Man- 
chester eloping with a 12th Lancer, Lord Henry Lennox laying 
the foundation stone of new water- works, and giving an answer 
about the light on the Victoria tower, the Duke of Edinburgh 
going to the regions of the London Docks to talk philanthropy, 
Mr. Burges veneering Sir Christopher Wren, and Mr. Knox 
sending a man to prison for a month with hard labor because a 
policeman does not believe his account of the way in which he 
became possessed of a book. Surely it must be pretty well time 
to go to sea again. 



FLOTSAM AJ^D JETSAM. 39 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Greenwicfi, Monday, June 29. 

There is a barge anchored close to me, the man in charge of 
which must sleep sounder than any creature I ever heard of in 
ancient or modern history. When in the silence of the night 
I am quietly doing some of that work, which seems to take 
time in inverse proportion to its effect, I hear a voice from 
the shore calling " Charley," by the half-hour together, till I 
am fain to lay down my pen and my book, and laugh at its 
patient pertinacity. Charley evidently turns in early, for 
the serenade often begins at nine o'clock, and he seems to 
learn nothing from experience, for it is almost a nightly 
incident. 

There is a lullaby in small things, in ripplings of beer, in ec- 
clesiastical sighings, and such gentle sounds, such as seem to 
have sent all our national watchmen to sleep. And though one 
stand and shout one's lungs out, they will not hear — no, not 
though the existence of the city depend upon it. 

* * -^h ¥: * -I: 

Thursday, July 2. 
You cannot add one cubit to your stature by taking thought ; 
and yet we do all take thought (those of us who exist at all, 
and do not vegetate), and bring ourselves into the strangest 
contradictions. I, for instance, have taken it into my head 
within the last week to be devoured by the strangest mania for 
becoming possessed of a " master's certificate ;" wherefore I 
have passed the last two days at the St. Katherine's docks, en- 
grossed in calculating problems of navigation and nautical 
astronomy. It will add nothing to my stature, and I know it ; 
but yet I have already faced two pent-up days of meridian and 
exmeridian altitudes, azimuths, amplitudes, and Napier's dia- 
grams, and am going to face the Board of Trade knows how 
many more, merely for a bit of paper, which will be of no use, 



40 1?L0TSAM AKD JETSAM, 

heavenly or earthly, to me when I get it — if I do get it — and 
the getting of which stands between me and the enjoyment of 
much decent weather and favorable wind. Yet I believe that 
if I don't get it, I shall be about five times as much disap- 
pointed as I should be if I heard that Saccharissa had run away 
with another woman's husband. 

The great secret of life is that of the relative importance of 
things. This also is the secret we none of us ever learn. And 
for various reasons, the cHief of which, perhaps, is that we 
none of us ever find out what we really mean to do, and that 
we therefore never get a standard by which to compare the rel- 
ative importance of two given things. If a man or a woman 
could only settle on a certain line of life — say that of mere 
physical self-satisfaction for instance — the matter would be 
easy. But the mischief of it is that the spirit is always pulling 
one way and the flesh another ; and so we most of us come to 
mere drifting at last. See what immense results have been 
achieved by those who have frankly abandoned the flesh and 
taken up with the spirit. Moses, Socrates, Mohammed, Fra 
Bartolommeo, Palissy, Newton, Swift, the Jesuits, Comte, 
have all moved the world in their own direction, and left a 
trace upon it such as will never be effaced. Why cannot we, 
or some of us, also make up our minds ? 



If those who are always lauding the triumph of science, and 
preaching that we have come to the end of all knowledge and 
all art, could be abashed, they should be by a consideration of 
the triumphs lying close to our hand, and which have never yet 
been even attempted. There is the force of the wind, for 
instance, immense as it is, now put to use only at sea, or if on 
land at all, merely for a few ridiculous mills. Then there is 
the irresistible power of the tidal wave — who has ever caught 
and bridled that ? 

Also there is the soul of a man, which is the strangest, 
grandest, and most divine of all forces. Yet the only crea- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 41 

tures who make any kind of use of it at this present time are 
the Pope and the Communards I 

***** * 

I have moved my second anchor out of the bows to abaft 
the mast. The principal point to regard in the stability of a 
given ship is not, as poor Plimsoll imagines, the weight of the 
cargo put into her, but the manner in which it is stowed. If 
a light cargo be ill-stowed the ship is far more unsafe than with 
a heavy cargo well stowed. To replace good stowage by 
empty space is madness. 

The insane desire there now is to multiply holidays, is but 
another symptom of the general madness. It is an utter 
blunder to suppose that men do their work well in inverse pro- 
portion to its amount. The capacity of man for work is almost 
unlimited ; but then it must be work of a varying kind, each 
kind holding its proper place. To expect any human creature 
to work nine hours a day at making pins' heads is one form of 
insanity — to expect to relieve him by half a Saturday of stagna- 
tion, a Sunday of church, and eight hours at the sea-side for 
half a crown is another. 

* * * * * * 

A gentleman was being examined in seamanship, and was 
asked — 

" You are on a lee shore, what do you do ?" 

" Put the ship about, or wear her." 

" But your ship will neither wear nor stay. What do you 
do?" 

*' Let go the anchor." 

" But there is no anchorage, the ground being rocky. 
What do you do ?" 

" Let her rip." 

This gentleman passed. But he migRt have thrown his 
yards aback, and on getting sternway have let her come round 
on her heel — which shows that we should never absolutely give 
up, but work right through at whatever we are about, until we 
are really and finally gone without remedy. 



42 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, 



CHAPTER IX. 

Greenwich, Saturday, July 4. 
To-day a huge, light steamer signalized herself by trying to 
run down the guard-ship Fisgard, a frigate built seventy years 
ago, distinguished in the " glorious first of June," and now 
put to these base uses. Failing in that she tried to come 
aboard of me, but finding I was one too many for her, she ran 
stem on into a poor little slip of a cutter-yacht anchored just 
below me, carried away her mast and bowsprit, ran her ashore, 
went ashore with her, and then getting off, steamed away re- 
joicing down the river. Nothing but the greatest carelessness 
or the greatest unhandiness on the part of the steamer's 
people could have brought about such an " accident," as I 
suppose the running-down will be called, and I hope the owner 
of the little cutter will be able to make her pay. He was not 
without fault, however, himself, for he had gone ashore and 
left nobody on board. Had I been in that case I should have 
been run down as well. 

Hi 5H * =i^ * * 

There are moments in life when the sunshine seems to be taken 
from the world ; when the glorious earth has no beauty left in 
it ; and when the very Man himself, so noble in truth, so per- 
verted to baseness in appearance, becomes a declared and bitter 
enemy. Yet it is not they who have changed, but only the eye 
that regards them. It is clear it must be so. The great struct- 
ure of many things which make up the universe is surely less 
likely to get out of order than the one single eye that regards 
them ; and if they seem to be in chaos, who shall say that it is 
they and not his vision that is deranged ? We all of us fancy 
when we meet troubles that they are greater troubles than ever 
were met before. It is merely because we know our own 
troubles better than we ever can know those of others. I 
never read a tragedy without smiling at it. Here is one single 
atom of this universe, because, forsooth, somebody has trodden 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 43 

upon him, affecting to fill the whole world with his complaint 
— calling the gods down from heaven to bear witness to his 
suffering, and the whole world to weep at his misery, as 
though, forsooth, he were more suffering than other men. 
And there are those who 2oUl weep with liim in lieu of burst- 
ing into laughter at his impertinent assurance. His misery 
indeed ! — Leah's or Othello's misery or mine ! Why, if every 
atom is to make a cry about his misery, the world will not 
hold the clamor. 

****** 

To-day another half-dozen lighters have gone athwart hawse 
of the Fisgard ; and watching them at it I have become aware 
that it arises in every case from beginning too late to count 
with the tide. When yet a long way off they think they have 
plenty of room to pull clear ; but then they go on thinking it 
till they find themselves close on top of the frigate, when there 
is nothing for it but to stop tugging and let her drive, which 
they do with great composure. 

****** 

Did you ever feel that you were being tempted to do a wrong 
thing — I do not mean what the world says is wrong, which is 
nothing, but what you are convinced is wrong, which is every- 
thing ? Did you ever see the temptation come toward you, 
you knowing it for itself all the time, and then feel its persua- 
sion steal softly and caressingly into your soul, and become 
suddenly aware that you had lost the battle even before you 
fought ? This is very bitter, for after all we do all of us wish 
and intend to do what we hold to be right ; and he who knows 
distinctly for himself that he has failed to do that on any occa- 
sion, carries thenceforth forever with him the ghost of the 
wrong he has done — a ghost which will appear to him some- 
times when he least expects it. * 

***** * 

MoNDA-Y, July 6. 

I have become aware, by finding the air filled even more 
than usual with river-language, that Greenwich holds to-day 



44 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

what it is pleased to call a regatta. I presume it may be pleas- 
ant enough for those who are on the land, but for those whose 
house is on the water it merely means that there are three 
times as many craft running into you, holding on to you, and 
putting you generally to the accredited uses. Probably the 
Derby dog, who is annually chivied over the course, is the only 
creature who does not thoroughly enjoy the race. 

* * * * %fc * 

It always seems to me that the love for athletic sports is the 
one surviving remnant of that grand old brutal English spirit 
which once made us a great nation. But I suppose we shall 
soon have this also put down by legislation. There will be 
statistics in plenty to show that over-exertion is a fruitful 
parent of crime and disease. We shall be told of the may ac- 
cidents that attend boat-races, polo, cricket, running, duck- 
hunts, and greasy-poles, when the " lower classes" are permit- 
ted to indulge in them without being regulated ; and some 
Plimsoll will insist that outriggers shall have a freeboard of at 
least six feet. 

****** 

Apropos of Plimsoll, why does that amiable enthusiast, who 
loves the British sailor so much that he would prevent him from 
going to sea, not take up the case of Greenwich Hospital ? I 
went over the hospital to-day, and was made so angry that on 
coming out I felt inclined to knock off the helmet of the 
policeman who stood at the gate as the representative of Gov- 
ernment. Here is a splendid pile, built by private subscrip- 
tion, endowed and given forever to the worn-out sailor, now 
taken from him, and turned into a cramming-shop for a few 
young gentlemen, while the sailor is turned adrift on fourteen 
shillings a week. In 1865 there were nearly three thousand 
sailors here, men who had spent their lives in the service of 
their country ; now there are scarcely more than two hundred 
boys coaching for examinations, who may or may not end in 
their serving their country. Formerly it was a centre of glori- 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 45 

ous traditions, there was not a man who had not his tale to tell ; 
now it is a mere nursery. The three thousand occupants were 
bribed to give up their home, and then it was pretended that 
the home was no longer the property of future occupants — 
which was false — and the Government has laid hands upon all 
the endowments which of right belong still to those future oc- 
cupants to all generations, and to none other ; and have seized 
the building for their own purposes — a piece of spoliation 
which is enough to make one go and commit an assault on the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Lord of the Admi- 
ralty. The hospital belongs to the worn-up sailor, and to him 
it ought to be restored, not only in his own interest but even 
more in the interests of the country. Mr. Plimsoll really 
ought to take it up. He would exercise his undoubtedly great 
power to some good if he would do this. Let him see a few 
old sailors, and hear what they have to say about it. 

****** 

Tuesday, July 7. 
I believe in a Providence moving and acting on defined, cer- 
tain, invariable, beneficent laws ; which is to say, that I 
believe in the existence of these laws themselves, and conse- 
quently in the existence of any Being, by whatever name 
called, representing an attempt to personify those laws. But a 
Providence ready to break and to disregard those laws, in that 
I do not believe. How then must this Providence smile — if it 
ever does smile — to find us men always wanting to have the 
fox's brush cut off and handed to us without trouble, and to 
get rid of the pleasure of the chase, which is all that we really 
enjoy. If / were Providence, and were by way of conferring 
a benefit upon mankind, instead of diminishing the difficulties 
of the chase, as we are always whining <io It to do, I should 
increase them. 

****** 

We little coasting yachts, who only pretend to go to sea, and 
who are never really happy till we ure fast tied to the side of a 



46 FLOTSAM Als^D JETSAM. 

quay, with a big blue or white ensign flying and a party of 
ladies on board at lunch, are the most arrant impostors per- 
haps in England. And yet it appears that we are not the only 
impostors, for I learn that the ignorance shown by the modern 
sea-going ships' ofiicers when they come up to be examined in 
seamanship is something quite appalling. The fact is that 
steam first nearly put an end to seamanship, and that the aboli- 
tion of the system of apprenticeship finally killed it outright. 
We live in times when nobody will learn their trade — no, not 
even the statesman whose trade is the longest and most difficult 
of all to learn. I see that the whole of the House of Lords 
indulged in assenting laughter when Lord Chelmsford " vent- 
ured to say" yesterday that its members could not do a rule- 
of-three sum in three hours. 



CHAPTER X. 

Off Margate, Friday, July 10. 

No wonder there is a wreck on the Girdler Sand. These 
entrances to the Thames are like Mr. Gladstone's opinions, con- 
fusing on account of their very number — not to say on account 
of their shallowness — and when you think you are certain to be 
able to get ovt through one, suddenly you have to alter your 
course and take another. 

****** 

Off Hastings, July 12. 

The refreshing feature of being at sea I believe to be this — 
that it is an occupation in itself. You can never find yourself 
in that most dismal of all passes, having nothing to do. Not a 
moment passes but demands its thought and its action. Con- 
stant unflagging attention is imposed upon you by sheer neces- 
sity, and the knowledge that you have nobody by whose advice 
you can ask keeps you perforce to your work. To-day the 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 47 

weather is so far equally fine in fact and in promise ; a grateful 
breeze is carrying us between five and six knots through the 
water ; Bill has surpassed himself over my dinner, and all 
seems prosperous. But who shall say how long it will last ? 
Who can be sure of anything there where every minute seems 
to bring a change of some kind ? That those who have been 
all their lives at sea do become careless and inattentive to its 
varying moods we know ; I can only envy them without 
being able at all to imitate them ; and am always casting 
about to discover what I shall do when that hurricane comes 
which I always believe to be pursuing me. Even when tak- 
ing a few hours' dog-sleep one carries the thing in one's mind, 
and takes account of the various things done on deck. ' ' Con- 
found that Ned, he's put her about again ! — always hanging on 
to the land, just like a smacksman. There he is now taking in 
his gaff-topsail. No necessity for that, I should say. If he 
doesn't go about soon we shall come near that Tower Knoll, 
and at low water too. Ah, 'bout ship ! All right ! Now for 
a sleep ! Why, there he goes again, and the wind falling. I 
must turn out, and get a cast of the lead." 



July 13. 
To really appreciate the daybreak you must have passed a 
night-watch waiting for it. What always strikes me is that in 
our latitudes the day never does break, speaking strictly, but 
steals upon you like the love of a woman — scarcely felt at first, 
until you are quite surprised to find yourself head over ears in 
light. Another remark I always make is that in reality the sun 
does not rise, but descends upon you. You see the higher sky 
and the upper sides of the clouds tenderly pencilled with gray, 
while below all is still black ; and you may watch the light come 
down till at last it meets the horizon, and, not till it has put 
out the stars and even the comet, joins hands, after much wait- 
ing, with the sun himself, from whom it came. This is very 
old, though ; and I observe that the comet, being newer and 



48 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

stranger, gains far more attention than any vulgar sunrise can 
do. All which explains to me our system of Parliamentary 
Government and the triumph of nebulous talkers over higher 
laws. 

***** '^Sr 

Off Beachy Head. 
Ned says that the wind *' alius fare to goo round ahead of 
us," andhe adds " that alius hev done so ever since he've been 
a sailorizing," which he holds to be an especial cross invented 
for him. I am sure he is delighted to have this grievance, just 
as Bill is, who comes to me quite radiant every morning and 
reports of the milk '' that hev turned all curdled like." I 
daresay now if Ned and Bill and I were endowed for our mis- 
fortune and that of mankind with the faculty of rhetoric we 
should get a crowd round us and utter the most dismal and 
piercing complaints of our lot. As it is, we simply go to worL: 
to make the best of it — which, indeed, is the only thing to do 
at sea ; for you can't steal anybody else's wind or milk, and if 
you could there is nobody to applaud you. 

* * * ^v * * 

Nothing seems to me so amazing as the assurance of the 
people who talk of the " lower classes" being " uneducated." 
They are thoroughly well educated ; their whole powers, mental 
and physical, are cultivated and developed by them in the very 
highest degree for the work they have to do in life ; and it is 
not too much to say that, as a rule, they know well-nigh every- 
thing it is their business to know. Nay, more ; they are the 
only kind of people of whom so much can be said : the 
" upper classes" are, as a rule, profoundly ignorant of those 
things which it is their business to know. When Members of 
Parliament know as much of history and statesmanship as 
ploughmen do of ploughing ; when ministers can conduct a 
negotiation as safely as a hansom cab-driver guides his cab, or 
a bargeman his lighter ; when parsons have brought their light 
to shine before men as bright and as true under all circum- 



FLOTSAM AJfD JETSAM. 49 

stances as a few common sailors keep the Varne or the Owners 
in all weathers ; when judges steer as true a course by the law 
as Ned will by the compass ; and when ladies have learned to 
wear their dresses as well as their sempstresses stitch them — 
then I shall listen with more patience to them when they talk of 
others being uneducated. 

****** 

There is no more lamentable, no more detestable, specta- 
cle in this world than that of a man or woman who knows 
the higher law and yet acts on the lower. For those of us 
who believe in nothing, or in nothing else than the mere 
material enjoyment which that cynic Solomon recommends — 
for these there may be forgiveness : but what shall there be 
for those who know the truth only to deny it by their acts, 
who recognize the law only to destroy it by their lives ? Surely 
the curse of mankind is theirs, and the vengeance of the Eter- 
nal. 

I know a man who might have been a blessing and a saviour 
to his kind. He chose to become a chapman and the father 
of a family. He is rich and tranquil — which is the modern 
translation for happy. But he knows that he might have been 
poor, unquiet, and powerful for good ; and when I tell him so 
he winces. 

****** 

What, then, shall a man do with his life ? First get rid of 
himself by providing for that self food and raiment ; and then 
having, as it were, pensioned himself off out of harm's way, go 
heart and soul, yes, and pension too, into any spiritual work. 
If only he be honest — which to have done thus much he must 
be — his work will not be a bad one, whatever it may be. 
Which of us would not now rather be William Cobbett than 
*' Loanmonger Baring," Moliere than President Taitufe ; Chat- 
terton than the Bristol Alderman ; Paul than Festus ; Wash- 
ington than Lord North ? Yet while each pair was living to- 
^•ether in the world, the choice of the vulgar would have been 



50 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

exactly the reverse. And 3^et also, while making the vulgar 
choice, we all Hatter ourselves that we are not of the vulgar. 
* ^ * * * * 

Carlyle insists very strongly on the duty of hero-worship — 
and very unnecessarily, for men are never backward in wor- 
shipping the heroes they set up, but rather the reverse. What 
is far more important is that our heroes should be of the right 
kind, and in this Carlyle does not as a rule greatly help but 
rather hinders us, setting up, as he has done, some very strange 
scare-crows. As for me, I can't accept a hero unless I am con- 
vinced that he is honest— a large word, pushing very many out 
of the heroic circle — and strong. Moses is a hero, David is 
not. Socrates, Plato, Mohammed, Leonidas, Nuraa, and the 
Theban Legion are all heroes, but not Romulus, Csesar or 
Alexander. Lord Balmeno was a hero, but not Hampden ; and 
as much as I worship and venerate the true, so much do I de- 
spise and detest the false. Neither are we without heroes in 
these times. I know four such, and I love and venerate them 
as greatly as I do any of the noble army known and unknown 
who have gone before them. They are obscure men, whose 
names have scarcely been heard, but men of heroic mould, and 
doing hero's work. In times when notoriety is confounded with 
heroism, it cannot be expected that the world should recognize 
its best men. But that it should worship some of its worst is 

unendurable. 

****** 

There are times when one is tempted to think the Americans 

the most hateful people of the earth. Their professed creed, 

that on which all their humor and satire are based (for this is 

really the test), is that all poetry, all sentiment, all religion — 

in short, all that has been from all time held in the Old World 

to be the better and finer part of our nature, is a miserable 

nonsensical make-believe swindle. But, in fact, they are the 

merest impostors when they put on this mask, and are simply 

affecting to follow the laws of that God Majority in whom they 

affect to believe. There is no more sentimental, impulsive, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 51 

high-flown people under the sun. They it is, and not we Eng- 
Hsh, who remember a birtliday, and send a little token of a 
flower or a scrap of paper costing twopence. They it is, and 
not we, who still believe in and who do mad heroic acts ; they, 
and not we, who devote themselves with their lives and for- 
tunes (as Englishmen of the old time would have said) to the 
right or even to the wrong if they believe in it. I wish Eng- 
lishmen were in this like unto them. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Arundel, 15th July. 
Surely it is an admirable thing to find a Duke ready to 
spend a million on something else than his own material enjoy- 
ment or the purchase of words ; therefore I honor the Duke of 
IN'orfolk and his cathedral very greatly — all the more because I 
see so few men left to do what in former times so many did — 
part with their substance, and, if need were, their lives, for the 
sake of their belief. I honor Rossel just as much, for he too 

did this. 

****** 

Off Selsea Bill, 18th July. 
I know a lady who makes it a complaint against seafaring in 
general, and especially against yachting, that " you are always 
thinking of your crew ; you can't dine after six because the 
forecastle gets so hot ; if you want to go ashore you have to 
wait till the men have finished their dinner," etc., etc. ; yet it 
seems to me not a bad thing that we should become aware that 
even these inferior animals have wants to *supply and souls to 
save. To learn, even at the price of waiting five minutes for a 
boat, that consideration and respect — yes, respect — are due to 
all men, is to learn no small and no common thing. Dogs and 
horses are, no doubt, the only living creatures out of one's own 



52 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

set with which one should really occupy oneself — yet I am very 
fond of men and women. 



Off Fecamp, 20th July. 

I have been " carrying on" with a fine strong breeze, in or- 
der to make my light and save my tide ; and watching my top- 
mast bend like a reed under the gaff-topsail, I think of the 
Spanish proverb which says that, "It is the weakest pull that 
breaks the rope at last, ' ' and I reflect that like most proverbs 
it asserts a falsehood under the guise of truth. We are get- 
ting eight knots an hour out of the Billy Baby, not without 
risk of something giving, yet it is not the eighth knot that en- 
dangers anything ; but really all the eight together, and rather 
the preceding seven than the last one. Indeed, one may go 
still farther back and say that it is the whole of my particular 
life and character which are now engaged in straining at this 
stick. Ned doesn't approve of it ; but then I have learned to 
hate waiting outside French ports, to cut things fine and to risk 
something — even a spar — in order to carry a point to which 
for a moment I attach importance. From which the chain of 
cause and effect is plain. 

I wonder people are not sick of hearing the oft-repeated false- 
hood as to great events springing from little causes. It was 
not the geese who saved the Capitol, but the piety of its de- 
fenders, who had refrained even in the pangs of hunger from 
eating those sacred birds ; it was not Hampden's twenty shil- 
lings of ship-money that brought Charles to the scaffold, but 
the long-settled determination of the landed proprietors to shift 
the burden of taxation from themselves to the people of Eng- 
land ; it was not the ordinances of July that brought about 
Charles X.'s abdication, nor the prohibition of a banquet 
which caused the fall of Louis Philippe, but the hatred and dis- 
trust France had learned for the whole Bourbon race during cen- 
turies of misgovernment. Some day in England we may have 
great effects produced, and they will also probably be traced 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 53 

to some trifling cause, some bill rejected or some measure ac- 
cepted ; whereas they will be due to causes which are acting 
now all over the country, and which no man sees. 

****** 

'' A new nobility," says Bacon, " is the act of Power ; 
but an ancient nobility is the act of Time." It always seems 
to me one of the great causes of our present confusion that all 
the really ancient nobility were killed in the wars of the Roses. 
Thenceforth we have had mere impostors for our nobles, men 
without traditions, who have gone as a matter of course into 
ignoble ways. At present our aristocracy is composed of com- 
mercially-souled men, intent, not at all upon maintaining the 
honor of an order into which they have been smuggled, but on 
adding to their rents and the places of their cousins. And yet 
those people have the face to lament the " demoralization" of 
the inferior classes, who are, after all, the least corrupted of 
any. Nay, if our orders were suddenly turned upside down, 
if the mean men were to change place with the noble, I know 
enough of both to be sure that things would be far more nearly 
in their natural order. But we believe too thoroughly in words 
to care for their meaning or to hold that there is any danger in 
their perversion. There is something almost sacred in a " most 
high and puissant," a " most noble," or an " honorable" man 
— but a most high and puissant liar and traitor, a most noble 
scoundrel, and an honorable swindler, these are creatures who 
canot really be anything but despised, even by those who most 
readily give them their false titles. 

****** 

21st July. 

There was once a man who set himself to sail across the 
Channel. He was thoroughly versed in navigation, and with 
his meridianal parts, his radius, his difference of longitude and 
latitude, he calculated his cause to within half a degree, cor- 
rected it for deviation and variation, translated it into sailoriz- 
ing language, set it to the helmsman, and turned in, confident 



54 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

that if the wind stood he would make his given point an hour 
before daybreak. The wind did stand, yet at this hour he 
found himself fourteen miles to the westward of his port. For 
he had entirely forgotten to allow for a spring tide. 
****** 

The romancers are still effective teachers ; but they have alto- 
gether abandoned the notion of ensamples for imitation, and 
only seek to display deformities for amusement. The teacher 
writes rather down to the lowest standard than up to the highest ; 
whereof the cause and effect are that the reader will not endure 
to hear of aught higher than himself, and rather seeks in the 
hero an excuse for his own littleness, than endure to be shamed 
by him into the effort to achieve greatness. Formerly the ro- 
mancer called upon " all you who love joy, and delight in 
honor and noble deeds," to admire an impossible hero — now he 
calls upon meanness and delight in hypocrisy and indolence to 
amuse and flatter themselves with a very possible vulgarian. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Dieppe, 24th July. 
I DO not think that the sun was a worse sun than it is now 
when men believed that it was moved round the earth, instead 
of the earth being moved round it, or that the earth's motion 
is less true because men say it moves and not it is moved. 
Neither do I hold that the uncertainty as to the authorship of 
parts of the Bible in any way detracts from its authority. It is 
a divine work whoever wrote it, and that is enough. I have 
no conception of Homer, none of Shakespeare, and very little 
of Dante, of Bacon, of Milton, of Sterne, or even of Victor 
Hugo — how shall one have a complete conception of any man 
or men when one has so incomplete a conception of one's 
self ? — but I have a conception of their work and that is 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 55 

enough. Why should we apply a different mle to the Bible ? 
There it is, a grand record of divine things ; the form is noth- 
ing, the incident with which it is clothed is nothing, and above 
all the language in which it is rendered is notliing ; so that 
when, if ever, the compilers of the now to be " authorized ver- 
sion" shall have turned it into newspaper leader English, and 
shall have cut out a few strong expressions, they will not liave 
changed it one atom. For they cannot touch its spirit, how- 
ever much they may disfigure its form. 

*' Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an 
account thereof in the day of judgment." That is not to say 
that men are never to speak idle words, but that they will have 
to show that the occasion was such as demanded no others. 
You and I, and insignificant people in general, may upon insig- 
nificant occasions be as idle as we please ; but not so those who 
assume to be teachers and leaders of men. What an account 
will our leaders and teachers have to give ! 

" By their fruits shall ye know them." I care not what a 
man says, though he should speak with tongues of Gladstone 
and Disraeli. Show me the work he has done, and I know the 
man for what he is. It is only by the effect of that he has 
achieved that he is here at all. If he has lived for himself 
alone, if he has in fact achieved nothing, then he is not here 
at all, but is merely a simulacrum or make-believe man. 
****** 

Fecamp, 26th July. 

I went to-day to the one jeweller and silversmith of the town 
to buy one of those delightful old copper-colored gold Norman 
crosses for a present. The silversmith had not got one, 
" Mais," said he, " j'en aurai bientot." " How ?" I asked. 
" Dame, monsieur, le gotlt est aux antiquites, et quand il n'en 
reste phis on est force d'en fabriquer. " * 

* "But," said he, "I shall have them soon." "How?" 1 asked. 
"Well, monsieur, the demaiid is for antiquities, and as there are 
none left, it is necessary to manufacture them." 



56 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

One thing has somewhat surprised me of late in France — 
though, indeed, whoever knows France ought never to be sur- 
prised — it is that I find almost everybody who speaks to me 
confidentially avowing that he is a Legitimist. They dare not 
publish their opinions, but that does not detract from their im- 
portance ; for in this country, as in most others, those who 
hold strongly convictions that cannot be published to-day are 
the masters of to-morrow. Henri V., by his attitude and his 
manifestoes of rigid consistency, is supposed throughout Eu- 
rope to have destroyed his chance of ever coming to the throne. 
In fact, he has enormously increased it, for this is the one peo- 
ple in the world that believes in principles, and will stand to a 
man who shows that he values his principles more than his in- 
terest. 

****** 

I started yesterday for Havre ; but after knocking about all 
night, and reefing myself down to three pocket-handkerchiefs, 
I find myself here, with no other excuse than that I wanted 
to see the place, didn't care for Havre, and wasn't going 
to face a strong breeze and dirty weather, for the sake of 
getting to that rather than to this port. " You must 
be somewhere," I reflected, and it matters neither to me 
nor to anybody else where / am, therefore I'll go to Fe- 
camp, get a dry suit, and breakfast, and take a fresh de- 
parture. 

Years ago, when I was a young man, I knew the most 
charming, ingenuous brown-eyed little girl that ever gladdened 
the eyes of a boy. She was at a convent at school, and used 
to send me messages of remembrance through her cousin. I 
have seen her again — married, and the mother of many chil- 
dren — and it has brought back to me my youth, and drawn me 
to a review of the things I have done with it. A sad review is 
this to most of us, but how sad to one who like me is con- 
vinced of the power of every man to do that which he really 
means to do, and who looks forward and sees the port, only to 
know that he uas never been '* looking up" seriously for it, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 57 

and has played with every puff that blew and made a fair wind 
of every breeze however contrary. 

* * * -,v * % 

Most of us who have struggled out of the trammels of educa- 
tion and belongings into our own life here, lirst become aware of 
it by becoming confronted with this question : what to do with 
it ? To do something that shall bear fruit is felt all at once to 
be a necessity without which existence were not existence. 
" Here am I," says the dazed eager neophyte, " with my head 
and my two hands manifestly not given to me for nothing ; I 
am full of life and courage. I could move a world. There is 
a restless, unappeasable longing in me, which will not let me, 
even were I so minded, shame my Maker and myself by simply 
cumbering the earth, which drives me to action that will leave 
a trace here when I shall be gone. Xot a trace of my name, 
perhaps — that is nothing — but some work which shall be, in 
any degree, however small, a valuable inheritance to my kind. 
Something I must and will do ; but what, in God's name, 
what?" 

The answer is found as soon as the question is asked. Do 
anything, so that it is actually you who do, and not another, 
and so that the thing is done, and not merely sketched or imi- 
tated. The world is full of work, of good work, in infinite 
variety. Conceive but one little idea, and, having placed it on 
record, you have planted an imperishable seed, and may go 
down to the grave content. It may not be a great idea, but if 
it truly is one of your own, and not another man's which you 
have put on, i/ou have done something. The point is that you 
must begin while the divine enthusiasm is still on you. If not 
you will fall into the common ruck and do naught. The basis 
of everything still is labor, and you must affront the labor now; 
if you delay, it will affright you, and, IIkc the rest, you will 
run cunning. It is the conscripts who volunteer for forlorn 
hopes : the old soldier values his skin too highly, and esteems 
too lightly the prize. Begin on what you will, but begin. 

Remember, too, that it is your glory as it is your fate, that 



58 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

you are here for your work alone. Other matters may and will 
occupy you, bat they are all subordinate. Your friend will 
betray you, the woman you love will deceive you, you will find 
yourself maybe one day in deadly struggle with poverty, and 
with what is worse than poverty — contempt. You will suffer — 
deeply, bitterly, perhaps — but what is that to a man who looks 
first to his work in life ? He does but go into the wilderness 
to pray, which only means to resolve and to puipose earnestly, 
and will come back again all the stronger. 

* * * * * * 

27th July. 

Fecamp is a charming little town, intent just now on the at- 
tempt to render itself a di.'^gusting big watering-place. The 
casino possesses three^ half-reclaimed fishermen, who appear as 
haigneurs in the morning, and disguise themselves in tail-coats 
to do duty as waiters in the evening. There is a splendid old 
church, evidently much frequented, for in it is this notice : 
" On engage les fideles a ne pas cracher sur le pave de I'eglise, 
surtout dans la chapelle de la Sainte Vierge." * Also, it is the 
headquarters of the " Liquor Monachorum Benedictinorura," 
which is no more made by monks than is Bass's beer, but in 
the most ordinary lay manufactory. 

The church is quite a gem, with its lovingly-carved chapels 
and oak panels, and its perfect and delicately-arched aisles ; 
and so, too, is the Chapel of Notre Dame de Salut on the top 
of the cliff full of those rude ex-voto models of ships that recall 
the perils of sailorizing. But the Revolution has left both 
much ruined ; and once again I find myself regretting the 
monks, and noting how imperfectly their principal function of 
succoring the poor, both spiritually and materially, is fulfilled 
by the State-salaried clergy and poor-reliever; who in modern 
times have replaced them. 



* " The faithful are requested not to spit on the pavement of the 
church, above all in the chapel of the Holy Virgin." 



FLOTSAxM AND JETSAM. 59 

Has it ever occurred to English legislators and diplomatists, 
sitting in the serene heights of church patronage and Brussels 
congresses, to note this little fact — that the English fishermen 
are supreme in dredging oysters, and that the French fisher- 
men are superior to them in catching mackerel and herrings ? 
And will they never make thereupon this reflection, that it 
would be wise to carry into effect the Convention of 1867, 
which enabled French fishermen to sell their fish in English 
ports, and English fishermen to sell their fish in France ? The 
result would be that oysters would be considerably cheaper in 
France, and mackerel and herrings in England. But then 
mackerel and herrings are the food of the common people, and 
of course are not worthy the attention of statesmen and diplo- 
matists. If it were a question of turbots or lobsters, the case 
would be different, as indeed the law has already declared it to 
be in a notable instance. 

Bacon says " the rebellions of the belly are the worst ;" 
whence it is to be inferred, if we did not otherwise know it for 
a fact, that the necessities of the belly are the most pressing. 
Yet, strangely enough, the bitterness of hunger has scarcely 
ever found a man with the gift of effectual speech to show all 
the misery and all the pity of it. For every little sentimental 
suffering there has been a voice, but none for this great mate- 
rial suffering which always exists. Probably it is because the 
hungry do not buy books. Yet surely here is a great un- 
touched field. If so much can be done with and for the man 
who is dying of love, and does not die, how much more could 
be done with and should be done for the man who is dying of 
hunger — and does die ! 

****** 

Here is here an ordinary-looking man of middle age. He 
looks like a retired stockbroker ; he is not in any way lovely or 
admirable ; and he walks in a solitary manner up and down the 
shore in a large straw-hat and boots like a Thames lighter, 
swinging a piteous whity-brown umbrella. He is always deejj 
in thought, and, looking at him, I wonder what such a man can 



60 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

be thinking about. Not of business, or of any present action, 
or he would not be, as he seems to be, permanently settled 
down here, doing nothing. Not of future projects either, for 
he is past the age for them. He is recalling his memories man- 
ifestly; and the mere listless hanging of his head and his um- 
brella show that they are not enlivening or satisfactory. Now 
I would wager something that he has in his mind at this mo- 
ment the recollection of that woman who jilted him, and is 
thinking how hard it was, and how different everything might 
have been. As for that other woman, whom he jilted (for at 
his age these two things have happened to all men), he never 
thinks of her. 

Surely it is an admirable feature of our organization that we 
remember only the wrong we have suffered, and not that we 
have done. Were it otherwise we should not be able to en- 
dure ourselves ; and what is perhaps worse, our sorrows would 
be real sorrows instead of being luxuries. Of all the treasures 
in life there is none so great as to feel this — upon such an oc- 
casion I truly did my whole duty, and yet was wrongfully 
treated. And it is his treasure a man counts when he is alone 
with his hat and boots and umbrella. 

* ^ * * * -Vc 

A lady of quality, learning that a too well-known actress 
wished to sell her diamonds, and, overcoming her scruples in 
the hope of a bargain, went direct to her to deal for them. 
The actress demanded for them a large sum of money, upon 
which the lady professed to be quite astonished and scandalized 
at its exorbitance. At last the actress went into a huff, and 
cried — 

"I see what it is — you would like to have them at cost 
price." 

The lady retired abashed and told her husband, w^ho laughed 
much. 

I am always reminded of this story when I hear of men seek- 
ing to be Ministers of State, Members of Parliament, and such- 
like things ; and when 1 see one who has succeeded, knowing 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 61 

the ways by which he has passed, the dirt he has had to eat, 
and the dishonesty he has had to display— then I respect every- 
body who is nothing. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CowES, 5th August. 
It is curious enough that we always remember people by 
their worst points, and still more curious that we always sup- 
pose that we ourselves arc remembered by our best. I once 
knew a hunchback who had a well-shaped hand, and was con- 
tinually showing it. He never believed that anybody noticed 
his hump, but lived and died in the conviction that the whole 
town spoke of him no otherwise than as the man with the 
beautiful hand, whereas, in fact, they only looked rft his hump, 
and never so much as noticed whether he had a hand at all. 
This young lady, so pretty and so clever, is simply the girl 
who had that awkward history with So-and-so ; that man, who 
has some of the very greatest qualities, is nothing more than 
the one who behaved so badly on such an occasion. It is a 
terrible thing to think that we are all always at watch one upon 
the other, to catch the false step in order that we may have the 
grateful satisfaction of holding our neighbor for one who can- 
not walk straight. No regard is paid to the better qualities 
and acts, however numerous ; all the attention is fixed upon 
the worst, however slight. If St. Peter were alive he would 
be known as the man who denied his Master ; St. Paul would 
be the man who stoned Stephen ; and St. Thomas would never 
be mentioned in any decent society without allusions to that 
unfortunate request for further evidence. Probably this may 
be the reason why we all have so much greater a contempt for 
and distrust of each other than would be warranted by a cor- 
rect balance between the good and the evil that are in each. 



62 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

•I don't think I would give much for the gift of prophecy, 
for I have never met with a case in which it has achieved any- 
thing like a brilliant success. Europe is not yet either Cossack 
or Republican, the British farmer has not been ruined, and the 
gathering of the tribes into the New Jerusalem seems rather 
farther off than ever, judging from the hold they have taken 
upon all the Gentile nations. And if I would give little for the 
power of predicting the future, I would give scarcely more for 
the power of rightly appreciating the past. What we live in 
is the present, and neither future nor past are of any value, 
save in so far as they bear upon that. The cases we have to 
deal with are all new and special, and all demand instant reso- 
lution and action, in which general rules are of the smallest pos- 
sible avail. There are but seven notes in the scale, yet with 
them infinite melodies may be made ; nay it were even impos- 
sible for any composer to make of them with his own wit alone 
any but quite a new melody. That we are most of us not com- 
posers, but mere parrot repeaters of compositions not our own, 
is only the explanation of the many miserable failures we 

supply. 

****** 

A huge ungainly government lighter was one day towed into 
Cowes Roads, and the naval officer in charge began to take 
bearings and to measure angles in order, as it manifestly ap- 
peared, to lay down moorings in a given spot. When all was 
at the point of readiness a boat came alongside, and a very 
superior personage in gold lace and buttons said to the officer : 
** If you put down them moorings here you'll be foul of my 
vessel." *' Why, who are you ?" asked the officer, taking a 
horizontal sight at Egypt Point and the Trinity flagstaff. " I'm 
the master of the vessel of Commodore the Earl of W^ilton." 
" W^ell, now," asked the officer, reading off his angle, and find- 
ing that he had at last got the exact spot ; " which do you 
think is the greatest person. Commodore the Earl of Wilton or 
Her Majesty the Queen of England ?" This was a nice ques- 
tion, and while the plenipotentiary was considering it, the offi- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 63 

cer resumed, " because I am ordered by the Queen of England 
to put down these moorings here. All ready there ? — let go," 
and down they went accordingly. 

****** 

I have given much attention to the education of the Queen 
of Shcba (disrespectfully called Sheba), and have made her 
understand that she is not to sleep on my velvet-pile cabin 
carpet, but in a comfortable berth provided for her on deck. 
She is very fond of me, yet when I came on board this after- 
noon she slunk away and entirely declined any interview. I 
have now discovered that the reason was that she had had the 
misfortune to steal two mutton chops and eat them. 

One rarely meets a man who cannot endure to bear good 
fortune alone, or who at once sets about seeking another to 
share it with him. Yet we none of us can rest until we find a 
friend with whom to share evil fortune. It is a blessed thing 
that merely to describe a sorrow and to have it received with 
sympathy real or affected is to lose one half of it, and often 
even to make of the other half a valuable piece of property. 
What is really hard is evil fortune which cannot be told. 

****** 
Bill is considered in his native Aldeburgh as a very revolu- 
tionary character. He has been known to say that " he don't 
care to live there always, he don't," a length of recklessness 
which no inhabitant of that favored spot had ever previously 
reached, so that he is looked upon as a dangerous atheist and 
freethinker in disguise, the kind of person to lead an insurrec- 
tion, or found a new religion, or something equally subversive. 
Yet even Bill confides to me that he would like a berth on 
board a lightship. I point out to him, the dignity of being 
independent, the advantage of passing his life in cooking 
omelettes for me in that perfection to which he has now pain- 
fully attained, and of surveying the world on board the Billy 
Baby from Greenwich to the Lizard— as compared with lead- 
ing a mere existence, shut up in the Galloper or the Kentish 



64 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

Knock. It is in vain. Bill says that a liglitsliip is " a regu- 
lar good berth, that is," and I see in him yet another who is 
ready to give up the highest aims and aspirations for a mere 
assured living. 

Men will, I believe, do anything rather than face the trouble 
and anxiety of thought and action of their own. " Give us a 
despot, a priest, a rule, somebody or something that shall think 
and act for us, leaving us only the mechanical part of the work 
— this, we know we can do ; that, we fear to undertake." 
Hence arise parties, autocracies, religions, moralities, which are 
valued as nothing more than so many inventions to relieve the 
laziness of men. There are many who understand that twice 
one are two, and even a few who understand that twice two are 
four, but scarce any who understand that twelve times twelve 
are a hundred and forty-four. They repeat it as a formula ; 
if you examine them they will appeal to the multiplication 
table, which is another formula ; but they have no idea of 
their own on the matter. Thence too it may arise possibly 
that men have invented and so grimly held on to the idea of 
there being a fixed eternal order in the world. Everything 
seems to announce the reverse, but to believe that things are 
continually changing, continually taking new faces and requir- 
ing a new thought and action, would be to believe that men 
ought to think and act for themselves. And rather than this 
they will believe anything. 

The strangest part of it all is that, although we thus strongly 
desire a rule, we none of us will ever thoroughly submit to or 
act under it. If the world were so constructed that it had to 
be wound up every eight days it would have stopped long ago. 

* * * :ic * * 

I greatly doubt whether the real knowledge of things has in- 
creased in the world, and whether the progress of science — of 
which we hear so much — amounts to anything more than an 
invention of new names for the old forms of ignorance. We 
once held earth, air, fire, and water as terms sufficient to in- 
clude the whole material universe ; now we have added gas, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 65 

and perhaps we may soon add the Odic force. But from the 
essence of things we are as far as ever. AVhen any man of 
science can show me so much of the vital force as to take and 
put it into dry bones and make them live, then I shall hold 
that our progress has got out of the region of names — not 
before. 

* * >f: * * * 

There were two trees in the Txarden of Eden, one of Life 
and the other of Knowledge. Is this not an assurance that 
knowledge is something more than the accumulation of obser- 
vations which inevitably and surely come with life ? Does it 
not teach us that every real step in knowledge is reached, not 
by putting one stone on the top of many others, but as by rev- 
elation from that other tree the fruit of which we have not in- 
herited ? If it be otherwise — if it be that true knowledge 
really is nothing more than the superposition of those kind of 
stones of which we all pick up one or two in the course of 
time, then there were not two trees, but only one. For sup- 
pose Eve had first eaten of the tree of Life, then she would on 
this assumption have certainly acquired the tree of Knowledge 
by the mere efflux of time. 

****** 

" There shall be one weight and one measure," declares 
Magna Charta, and this indeed is the foundation of everything. 
Yet to this day no two kind of men — scarcely, indeed, any two 
men — can be brought to use the same weight and measure for 
the same admeasurement. 

Professor Huxley is held to be a clever man, yet he palpably 
only cares to deal in words, and has no notion of the responsi- 
bility a teacher incurs who gravely tosses them to the world as 
though they were realities. " In the early part of the last 
century," he says, " Society was in a state of corruption^ — 
bribery was the means of Government, and peculation was its 
reward. Four fifths of the seats in the House of Commons 
were notoriously for sale in one shape or another" — and so 
forth. He then compares the present state of things, which he 



66 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

declares to be ** in many obvious respects far better tban that.'' 
Surely a clever man standing up to say something ought to be 
able to say something better than this. If Professor Huxley 
really thinks that Society is not now corrupt, it can only be 
because he does not know it, and because those who do know 
it will not speak out in this generation. Bribery is not less 
than it was the means of Government ; the only difference is 
that the form of the bribery has changed, while the bribe itself 
has been made more magnificent, being nothing less than irre- 
sponsible power in England. Moreover the chiefs have found 
means to keep the whole prize themselves ; and instead of giv- 
ing their followers money dovvn, they pay them in promises. 
The rank and file, no doubt, now get nothing or next to noth- 
ing, but if they are not bought, it is only because they are not 
worth buying, being so easy to bamboozle. As to the seats in 
the House of Commons not being now for sale, if Professor 
Huxley will produce any incarnation of supreme wisdom — say 
himself — to any constituency, and get him elected without 
money, or " inflaence," or "party" — all which, be it remem- 
bered, involve sale " in one shape or another" — then I will 
cheerfully and thankfully agree with him. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CowES, 10th August. 
** I ALWAYS speak of people as I find them" strikes me as 
being about the most selfish and cowardly excuse that ever 
stole the garb of generosity. It amounts to this : that for me 
there is to be no such creature as a thief who has not stolen 
my property, no traitor who has not betrayed me, no perjurer 
who has not forsworn himself to me, no adulterer who has not 
run away with my wife, no wickedness in the world at all un- 
less I have suffered by it ; that, in short, I am bound to sell 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 67 

myself to the Father of Lies, and lie about all men knowing^ly 
— about all men, unless they have redeemed me from the 
necessity of so doing by inflicting upon me some injury which 
justifies me in avenging myself by telling the truth about 
them. Rather it seems to me should we beware of people as 
we find them, for that is usually as they are not. Claude 
Duval once danced a minuet on Hounslow Heath, yet many 
would be surprised if he were to be spoken of as an excellent 
dancer and no highwayman. For he is dead and gone, and it 
is only of the living that we are expected to tell lies. 

And now what terrible retribution will overtake some who 
are now living in this false atmosphere with the pleasant belief 
that the truth will never be known of them ! There is cer- 
tainly at this moment some Due dc St, Simon or some Walpole 
calmly and secretly taking notes, hereafter to be published, of 
these men and things that we have about us. How the readers 
of those notes will despise us ; how they will wonder that no 
hint of the truth ever escaped while such strange things as they 
will learn were actually being enacted ; how they will admire 
the reticence of those who knew them and who yet said no 

word ! 

****** 

You can get eight knots an hour out of anything ; I have 
got that much even out of the Billy Baby. It is when you 
come to the extra speed that you meet the difficulty. The 
Alberta will steam thirteen knots with one boiler, but if now 
her second boiler be brought into play and the power thus ex- 
actly doubled, it is as much as she can do to add another two 
knots to the thirteen. 

Anybody will be indifferent honest ; but to be anything 
beyond demands a power of which few are possessed. I know 
many a man who would not be mean or ungenerous for money, 
few who would not for favor ; many women I know who will 
hate you for yourself, very few who will love you for nothing 
else. Few of us can be tempted to do that which we hold to 
be wrong by that which we don't want — those who cannot be 



C8 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

tempted by tLat which they do want are honest. He who fears 

not death is no hero, he who seeks it is no martyr ; yet there 

have been heroes and martyrs — most of them unknown for 

such. 

****** 

11th August. 

We have had for the last week " wind enough to blow the 
devil's horns off," as Ned says, and there is enough at this 
present time to carry off his tail along with them, nor do 
things seem likely to get better until they have been worse. 
Dresses are either ruined or, what amounts to the same thing, 
are kept out of sight ; expeditions round the island are post- 
poned, and persons of the highest distinction are gravely in- 
convenienced because no means have yet been found of 
thoroughly controlling and laughing at winds and waves, and 
because rain still continues to wet that which it touches, acting 
precisely as wind, waves, and rain may be presumed to have 
done in the uncivilized Garden of Eden. 

What, then, if we were all poor things after all, and small 
specks dusted, as it were, into the great machinery of this uni- 
verse ? When I see Royal Standards hoisted at the main of 
the Osborne and the winds and the waves taking no notice, 
I have a fearful misgiving and suspicion that after all it may 
be so. If there are powers at work in this respect which are 
above and beyond us, and which we cannot anyhow reach or 
influence, why, there may also be in other respects. Were it 
not then possible to suppose that even these specks obey some 
higher rule than that of some other speck equally subject to it 
— neither of them perhaps knowing any more whence it comes 
or whither it tends than they know of the winds ? Were it 
not possible to imagine that when they make projects of 
authority, of submission or what not, they are still and must 
be unable to carry them into effect, save as the unknown rule 
may allow ? What if we were all pretending to do that which 
we cannot in fact do ? Would it be true wisdom to allow an 
Almighty Power in the winds because they are strong enough 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 69 

to blow, and to disallow it in the mind and conscience of men 
because they are strong enough to deceive ? 

^ Jjc sp :}i :j€ :fj 

12th August. 

I have been assured many times that the moon has nothing 
to do with the weather, but I don't think anything will ever 
make me believe it, and I have made up my mind that to-day's 
moon is to bring us an improvement on the very dirty state of 
things we have had for the Cowes week. 

There are some things that you may prove to demonstration, 
and never get them really to be accepted, for we only believe 
what we can, and what we can believe we believe in spite of 
all evidence. Indeed, the things that are most thoroughly 
believed are those that have the most evidence against them. 
The selfishness of man, the worth of money, the value of 
power, the place of self in the centre of the universe, the 
supremacy of Chance, the blindness of the Almighty, are all 
notions the belief in which can be easily shown to be false and 
ridiculous ; yet upon them men every day stake their whole 
life, which is a much better way of showing that they believe a 
thing than merely saying so. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Cowes, 15th August. 
In itself there is nothing so delightful, or even so improving, 
as communion with one's kind. Merely to look at men and 
women is a great pleasure in itself — to look at them under the 
favorable circumstances of evening lighjt, careful dress, and 
lawful behavior, and withal to converse with some of them, 
even if it be in mere prattle, is a still greater pleasure. And 
yet means have been found to render it the greatest trouble and 
the most tiresome business on earth, so that any decently intel- 



70 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

ligent creature will readily prefer even solitude to society. We 
know each other far too little, only just enough to hate each 
other with difficulty, not enough to love each other with ease ; 
which we are certain to do on anything over five minutes' ac- 
quaintance. 

****** 

17 th August. 

The charm of seafaring, even when pursued in my pottering 
ignoble coasting way, is that for a man who has serious work 
on hand that he can take with him (and most serious work can 
be taken with one, for it is not a matter of machinery, but of 
thought) it offers a continual variety of employment. At sea 
you have your navigation and seamanship to think of, and must 
think of them to the exclusion of all else under pain of coming 
to grief; in port you can settle down again to your serious 
work with the knowledge that there will be nothing to interrupt 
or interfere with you till you telegraph for your letters. 

The English system of working and resting by extremes 
seems to me very bad and very unwise. To think that men 
can work at the very highest pressure all the days of the year, 
and that they can be refreshed and remade by a few Bank 
Holidays devoted to eight hours at the seaside, is a delusion. 
Far better would it be if the holidays were spread over the 
whole days of the year. The result of working time would 
be the same, the increase of working power would be enor- 
mous. For where you have overdrawn on a man's energy, 
you cannot balance the account by placing on the credit side a 
lump sum of idleness. That is as though we should eat ex- 
clusively for six months, and drink exclusively for the other 
six months of the year. What man requires is not an infrequent 
alternation of work and play, but a frequent alternation of oc- 
cupations, each of which shall be work in itself and play to the 
other. The excursion-trains are to me only so many melan- 
choly proofs that the English people at large have not learned 
to provide themselves with those recreative occupations which are 
accessible in one shape or another to the meanest and the poor- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. "Hi 

est. If they had, they would not be driven to such a wretched 
device for filling their holidays as a whirl from one place to an- 
other, and a whirl back. They learn nothing by it, they enjoy 
nothing, and they add nothing to themselves morally or physi- 
cally. As for " fresh air," that is a mere delusion invented by 
enterprising directors, for it may be had as fresh in Kensing- 
ton Gardens or on Hampstead Heath as anywhere in the world. 
****** 

August 18. 
The Sunday is a shockingly misrepresented day with us. 
People seem to imagine that those particular twenty-four 
hours which are embraced in that name have a character and 
claims different from other hours, as though we had been told 
that the Sabbath-day was in itself holy, instead of being jtold 
to '' keep" it holy, which is very different and more difficult. 
If there were anything holy in the Sabbath itself, it is manifest 
that the apostles could not have ventured to change its incidence 
as they did from Saturday to Sunday, nor should we have learned 
that it was made for man and not man for it. The real truth 
about it is that we are bound in an especial manner to do on 
that day the duty which we are also bound to do on other 
days, and especially to keep ourselves in a sense of the higher 
law, which we should never forget. The real Sabbath-breaker 
is the man who premeditatedly seeks to lower his intelligence 
and to brutalize himself by absolute inaction ; the true Sab- 
bath-keeper is he who so uses the first day of the week as to fit 
himself more truly for the work of the succeeding six. The 
man of sordid occupations should then seek to elevate his ideas 
by any means that are at hand, whether by church, by private 
devotion, or the improving converse of friends. For the con- 
verse of friends well chosen is perhaps^ the most elevating 
agency in life, which is one reason why we should all be care- 
ful so to choose them on week-days that they shall be available 

for Sundays. 

****** 

We were discussing the weather this morning, and wonder- 



72 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

ing whether of the two, the sky which looked threatening, or 
the barometer which was most encouraging, would prove right. 
Some of the best weather prophets were of one opinion, some 
of another, until at last a mere boatman declared with an un- 
wavering tone of authority, that *' it was all for fine weather.'^ 
Upon which all the prophets at once put to sea. 

The wise men make the fools. For whenever a fool comes 
to look at a wise man, he finds so little difi'erence between that 
man and himself that it seems barely worth while to seek for 
wisdom. And when he comes to look at two wise men and 
finds that all their wisdom only makes them disagree the more, 
then he feels certain that the only safety lies in absolute folly. 
But if now he lights upon a wise man either not wise enough 
or not honest enough to admit that he, too, is fallible, then the 
fool will stand by him to the death. 

****** 

I remember to have seen somewhere the remark that since in 
all honest proceedings the child, the madman, and the absent 
are always allowed, when their interests are at stake, to be rep- 
resented by a person required to act not upon their judgment 
but upon his own, therefore " the people," which is always at 
once childish, mad, and absent, ought really to be allowed no 
influence over the acts of their representative. And this is 
true. And what must, therefore, be equally true is that when 
the people themselves choose one to represent them, he is not 
unhkely to be as they are, either childish, mad, or absent, when 
their interests arc at stake. We must be a wonderful nation 
whose representatives are never either one of those three. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

St. Peter's, Guernsey, 20th August. 
I THINK I never conceived so great a disgust for any place 
as, upon my first view, I have for this. I believe I am not 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAH. 73 

difficult to please. I do not hate Ratcliff Highway, I am posi- 
tively fond of Wapping, and even the region of Belgrave 
Square has some pleasant memories for me. But this place is 
merely revolting, and though I have been here barely two 
hours, I have seen more vulgarity without manliness, more ve- 
nality without object, more immodesty without passion, than I 
should have thought existed anywhere — the whole utterly un- 
redeemed by any spark of those higher fires which sometimes 
sweeten the most ignoble smoulderings. My disgust began be- 
fore I set foot on the shore. Of course, in a place where the 
paternal system of compulsory pilotage exists, I knew I should 
never get a pilot. No one of us on board the Billy Baby had 
ever been near the Channel Islands before, so to ease my con- 
science I hoisted my jack, and positively when I had blun- 
dered in my own way through the Little Russel and was in the 
act of dropping my anchor in these roads, a creature had the 
assurance to board me and to announce that he was the pilot. 
I promptly showed him over the side, and was doubly aggrieved 
to find that he had not self-respect enough even to fight the 
question, and that he proposed I should " give him a trifle" 
and say no more about it. Then I went ashore, and was im- 
mediately confronted by the most incredible statue of a gentle- 
man in the short trunks, silk tights, and buff boots of a trans- 
pontine villain, inscribed " Albert, Prince Consort," just as 
though one should write "Blanc-Bee, Esquire"; then I was 
reduced to dine at an hotel, and I was more hurt than ever to 
find that the repast was provided for and with creatures who 
comported themselves precisely in the same way as though they 
had been fashionable London people feeding themselves through 
two hours of boredom. I thought as I looked at them how 
exactly I could match them all out of the superior circles, and 
in the end I left them just as one linen draper's assistant was 
beginning, under the influence of bottled stout, to thaw to the 
other ; only to find, on returning to my ship, that it has 
already been invaded by touts for the sale of every kind of 
contraband produce under the sun. I shall not stay here long. 
****** 



74 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

St. Peter's, 21st August. 

The Little Russel, if we Lad no chart of it, is a charming, 
picturesque channel at high water, bat when the tide is out, to 
see all those terrible jagged rocks appear, and to remember how 
one came past them with a four- knot tide, suggests to one a 
notion of the day of judgment in a very lively manner. 

If any ten men in London w^ere to tell all they knew, they 
would blow the roofs off half the houses in Mayfair. Let any- 
body hold the frightful review of the secrets that have come 
across him in the course of even a short and ordinary life, and 
think what would be the result if only one or two of them 
were known as he knows them, and he will admire the power 
of absolute forgetfulness shown by people who bear themselves 
as though there w^ere no secrets in the world. Nor, indeed, 
are there so long as they remain secrets ; but it is terrible to 
think how many there are whose whole existence hangs upon 
the safe custody of a letter or the tongue of a servant. 
****** 

Jersey, 22d August. 

Ned lay aloft this morning in a strong wind and a nasty sea 
to lace the topsail to the mast, and Tom and Bill were so un- 
handy at the halyards that he got into trouble with the sail be- 
fore he had laced two holes. He shouted to them again and 
again ; they did less and less what was required, and at last he, 
with blundering which is the mark of a smart man, dived head- 
long into a sea of very strong imprecations affecting their eyes 
and their morality. This moved them and relieved him, and 
in two minutes more the topsail was laced. 

****** 

Of all the developments of faith, I think there is none at all 
comparable to the belief that every man has in his own ship. 
There never was and never will be such a vessel on the seas as 
this particular one that he commands or sails in. Its merits 
are greater merits of a greater kind than ever before were 
known ; its defects are only so many merits in disguise. She is 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 'j'S 

not a good sea-boat, but the pace she sails is inci-edible ; she is 
not fast, but she would drown a good many of them in a bad 
sea ; she won't hang to vvind, but none of them can touch her 
running ; she doesn't run very well, but she'll turn to wind- 
ward in a way that would surprise you — and so forth. I over- 
heard Ned impRrting to a Guernsey fisherman, in a careless 
way, the information that we generally got eight or ten knots 
out of the Billy Baby, and that we had never taken a pint of 
water on board, though we had been out in every kind of 
weather. I can quite understand the men who went to sea on 
a slab of marble. I am sure they held it for the finest craft 
that ever floated. 

Beliefs, I take it, are originated never in evidence, nor even 
on what are called reasonable grounds, but solely in their ap- 
parent profit. I believe in this woman because I love her, and 
I don't believe in any other, because I love no other. I be- 
lieve in my ship because I sail in her, and don't like to think 
she will go with me to the bottom. In each and every case the 
necessity or the desire for the belief is the foundation of it. 
If there were any apparent pleasure or profit to be derived from 
believing that the sun went round the earth, we should all be- 
lieve it most thoroughly. 

St. Helier's, Jersey, 22d August. 
*' Which do you prefer, Jersey or Guernsey ?" 
'' I have only been to Guernsey, and I prefer Jersey." 
Something of this kind must, I imagine, be at the bottom of 
the preference entertained by many reasonable men for infinite 
as compared with finite existence. They only know time, 
and so they prefer eternity. Perhaps, if somebody were to come 
back from eternity, they would prefer time. 

Thus I said yesterday, but now having come to Jersey, I 
prefer Guernsey. On the whole, if it were not for the excite- 
ment of picking up unknown rocks from the chart and the 
jumps involved in the chance of being contrariwise picked up 



76 FLOTSAM A KB JETSAM. 

hy them, it would not be worth while to make the acquaint- 
ance of the Channel Islands even without a pilot. They seem 
to be the resort of the British rough, the rendezvous of the un- 
relieved excursionist, and the home of the drunkard. There is 
a statue of one of the Georges out of his shirt-sleeves ; there 
are the cheapest and nastiest cigars, spirits, and walking-sticks 
in Europe ; there are soldier-officers in uniform and jaunting- 
cars making perpetual tours round the island. If Tottenham 
Court Road were swept into one basket together with Seven 
Dials, the Haymarket, Plymouth Hard, and the Boulevard des 
Batignolles, and the whole were emptied on the nearest rock 
off the coast of Spain, the result would be Jersey. It is the 
kind of place to which a philosopher might come to drink him- 
self to death at slight expense and without any risk of regret- 
ting those he left behind. As for getting to it, the coast is so 
stuck about with rocks and the tides run so strong and so many 
ways at once, that nothing but a inost thorough contempt for 
the works of nature could give anything like confidence among 
them. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Anse du Solidor, St. Malo, 25th August, 1874. 
As the only available pilot for St. Malo to be had in Jersey 
was incapably drunk, and likely to remain so for several days, 
I was in any case under the necessity of finding my own way 
here. I had no chart of the port large enough to be of any 
use, but I succeeded at last in buying an old one at a Jersey 
public-house. Its one recommendation was that it only cost 
sixpence, and that, although fifty-two years old, it was certain 
to be good for everything except new marks, since rocks don't 
alter like sands. Armed with this I left St. Helier's at high- 
water, came round the Minquiers, which even at that time 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 77 

showed black heads enough above water to frighten one, and 
at last found myself outside that insane puzzle of rocks which 
makes St. Malo so difficult of approach. What with the 
Conchies, the Plate, the Pierre aux Normands, the Roche aux 
Anglais, the Crapauds du Bey, and some hundreds of other 
rocks, all newly marked, and all therefore only to be avoided 
by compass-bearings and allowance for the set of the tide, we 
passed rather an excited hour while winding our way through ; 
but the pleasure of getting through and of letting go the anchor 
in this charming little corner was but the greater, and the more 
calculated to make one forswear all pilots and their works for 
all time to come. On examination I find that five new lights 
have been lit and some sixty new marks laid down since my 
chart was printed ; and herein I recognize the constant policy 
of pilotage authorities in alt countries — which is to be continu- 
ally changing the marks as much as possible, so that none but 
their own experts shall know them. Their principle is that a 
stranger who doesn't take one of their pilots deserves to be 
lost. 

Anse du Solidor, 26th August. 
St. Malo is, I think, of all the towns I have seen, that which 
has most completely preserved the character of the Middle 
Ages. You have but to look at it from the roads to see that 
it is the work of a hardy race, obstinate, laborious, narrow- 
minded, believing, and pugnacious. The massive walls and 
quaint towers which gird the little rock-island on which it stands 
would make Von Moltke smile, and would even have been de- 
spised by Vauban ; but they are the enduring record of men 
who had more faith in what they did than to look merely to its 
overthrow, of men who built not in days for y<ears, but in years 
for centuries. They loved their home too, for they crowded 
the houses on the narrow rock one above the other — one upon 
the other, one might almost say — and rather than leave it, 
piled story upon story, till hands could be shaken across the 
narrow streets at break-nerk hciojht. It is a living bit of Cal- 



78 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

lot. And when you enter the town, you feel as though you 
had left three centuries behind you. The almost entire ab- 
sence of wheeled traffic, the blessed want of gas-glare, plate- 
glass and articles de Paris, the deep tortaous streets, the sur- 
prising irregular corners and the impossible differences of level, 
belong so entirely to other times that one expects at every turn 
to meet a company of partisans, a guild of artisans, or a bevy 
of richer burghers not ashamed to wear finer clothes than the 
rabble, and to hear the question discussed v/hether the Malouins 
had not best sally forth against the English trader, or whether 
they should abandon the League for Henri IV. There are few 
persons of fashion or pretence to be seen, there are no big new 
hotels, and everybody appears to go to bed at nine o'clock, for 
by that time the streets are deserted. Add to this that the peo- 
ple are ugly, and it becomes manifest that St. Malo is a very 
chosen spot. 

****** 

St. Malo, 26th August. 
I find that the great dainty here is our old friend the dreaded 
pieuvre or octopus. It is known to the Malouins as the " Mi- 
nard," and at this time of year, when he has grown to a con- 
siderable size, it is the great amusement of the boys to hunt 
him. I saw two caught to-day on the rocks, and was not a lit- 
tle edified to discover that in spite of Victor Hugo the boys 
were not in the least afraid to handle the ugly monster. They 
fish him out of the water with a boat-hook, and then — tearing 
him away from the boat, to which he clings with all his suck- 
ers — plunge their hand into the middle of him, and in the 
twinkling of an eye turn his peculiar membranous bag inside 
out. The effect of this is to render him instantly powerless, 
and thenceforth they handle him without fear of his strong bird- 
like beak, and dash him to death against the rocks. Then hav- 
ing washed him clean of the inky liquid with which he troubles 
the water when fishing on his own account, they beat him to a 
jelly, peel off the dark skin, cook him with vinegar, and eat 
him cold like a lobster, or even pickle him for the winter. He 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 79 

ia esteemed a very great delicacy ; so much so that his market 
price is five sous, which is a large sum in these parts. I am 
told that he is when alive particularly fond of shell-fish, which 
he breaks open and eats with his powerful beak, and that by the 
end of the summer he is often found with limbs three or four 
feet long. No doubt he leads a fine, lawless, filibustering life ; 
and no doubt, too, that he is held for a very gallant, handsome 
fellow by the females of his kind, who, if one could but get at 
their sentiments, would probably regard men as the most loath- 
some creatures of the universe. 

In the greater number of cases of love-making between any 
two given people it will be found that one of the two has n.o 
kind of reasonable excuse for being in love at all. And it will 
commonly also be found, if the history of the affair be exam- 
ined, that that one has indeed not fallen in love, but has merely 
become reconciled to the other, sometimes even in mere self- 
defence — just as one would become reconciled to the Chimoera 
if one had one's attention fixed by it for a certain time. Put 
any dull man and woman together in a dull place, and the 
duller one of the two Avill certainly make advances for the mere 
occupation ; whereupon the less dull must either fly or else first 
notice, then endure, and finally be reconciled, however bad the 
bargain may be. There is no other history than this of love- 
making of any ordinary type. 

* * * * ^ * 

Din AN, August 28. 
Dinan is even more striking, more picturesque, and more 
thoroughly smacking of the Middle Ages than St. Malo. The 
monasteries, some ruined and some converted to new uses, the 
walls turned into gardens, the tortuous lanes, full of fifteenth- 
century houses, shallow-storied, and pushing their massive carved 
beams into the street over deep porticos, the beetling tower- 
crowned heights plunging down clean into the depth where the 
Ranee is embroidered like a silver thread on a green bed of 
verdure, the homely dress and manners — nay, the very purity 



80 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

and price of butter and bread — all announce a favored spot not 
yet deflowered by the railway. It is just the place where a 
tired man would love to rest, and to plant himself down never 
to move again. 

I learn that the agricultural laborers about here eat meat 
daily. A common shipwright, who has repaired my boat, tells 
me that his father paid a hundred pounds to buy him off from 
the army when he drew a mauvais numero. Now, we know 
that the laborers of Essex and Suffolk scarcely ever see meat ; 
and we know, too, that there are no shipwrights in England 
whose fathers could produce a hundred pounds. Manifestly, 
therefore, there must be something very wicked and opposed 
to the designs of Providence in a country capable of producing 
phenomena so entirely against the order of nature. Probably 
that is why all England does not come to settle at Dinan. 

* * -St * * * 

St. Malo, 29th August. 

A curdled sky and mares' tails 
Make lofty ships carry low sails, 

is a saw I much respect, and I was somewhat exercised on 
going on deck at six this morning to find, although there was 
then but a moderate breeze blowing, a very thick curdle man- 
tling up from the south-west, and all the overhead clouds torn 
into fine hair-like wisps drawn away in various directions, as 
though the firmament had been cross-hatched with delicate 
brushes. I had intended to start with the first of the ebb ; but 
seeing this, and seeing, too, that the glass had fallen nearly 
two tenths, I so far temporized as to go ashore and buy pro- 
visions. By seven the wind had considerably increased. I 
learned, moreover, that a schooner which went out yesterday 
was forced to put back, and reports very bad weather and much 
sea outside, added to which we are at the worst of the spring- 
tides, which having here a rise and fall of forty feet, and a ve- 
locity of from four to seven knots in all directions at once, are 
iiot to be trifled with. Finally, to decide the matter, it has begun 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 81 

to rain in torrents, winch renders cvcrytliing invisible ; and it 
is therefore with the most self-approving conviction of being 
qnite right that I resolve to give it another day or two, all the 
more so that this is the most delightful of anchorages, in which 
it must be a real pleasure to ride out a good blow. 

I can quite understand that continually recurring phenomenon 
of men going calmly to be hanged, when once it has been de- 
cided beyond hope of recall that they are to be hanged. The 
disquieting period in all matters is the period of indecision ; 
but when once you have made up your mind to a given course, 
no matter how disagreeable that course may be, you are happy. 
That is probably what makes us all so eager to run into the 
first decision at hand, rather than face the wear and tear and 
worry of thinking over all the decisions possible, until we have 
arrived at the best. And yet philosophers and moralists who 
preach, nay, and even novelists who describe, all affect to deal 
with men and to treat of them as though they were reasonable 
creatures, who thought out everything to the bottom, and acted 
upon a calm selection of courses. 



St. Malo, 30th August. 
I saw to-day a blind man led by a dog passing through the 
crowd of holiday-makers, and asking in a piteous song for char- 
ity. He was a terrible spectacle, miserable beyond expression; 
and I think nobody could have looked at him without compas- 
sion. But nobody would look at him, and he went from one 
end of the promenade to the other without receiving a glance 
or a sou. Shortly afterward there arrived another blind man. 
He was nothing like so pitiable as the first — he had none of 
the same look of abject wretchedness, none of the same hope- 
less, dragging gait, but seemed rather one who felt that he had 
been provided by nature with an honorable and remunerative pro- 
fession. He was led, not by a dog, but by a pertinacious boy, 
who haled him about to confront every creature within reach, 
appealing to all with the same set whine, and reporting to his 



82 FLOTSAM Al^D JETSAM. 

chief, sotto voce and in natural tones, the result of his appeals, 
thus : " Ayez pitie d'un malheureux aveugle (rien) ;" " ayez 
pitie d'un malheureux aveugle (trois sous !) ;" '^ ayez pitie — 
(g'n y a pas de monde — a gauche) ;" " ayez pitie," and so 
forth,* Coppers and even silver pieces fell into his hat from 
the hands of well-nigh everybody ; whereupon I reflected that, 
although many of us do our alms without a great desire to be 
seen of men, still we do like to be seen at least of that man to 
whom the alms are given ; also, that possibly there may be less 
reproach conveyed in the look of a dog at the obdurate alms- 
withholder, than in the look of a pertinacious boy ; and finally, 
that a dog is more easily avoided than a boy. 

From time to time it occurs to the common people of Eng- 
land that they are miserably off, and they come cap in hand 
humbly enough to their masters, the superior classes in Parlia- 
ment assembled, and in Ministers incarnate, begging for some 
alleviation of their misery. Not very long ago, pressed harder 
even than usual by famine, they prayed for cheap bread, and 
certain pertinacious boys from the manufacturing districts, 
perceiving that cheaper bread meant cheaper labor and larger 
profits, took them in hand, and led them about wailing till 
they got it. Now, in these latter days, the same people have 
asked for wages that will enable them to keep body and soul 
together ; but as higher wages mean dearer labor, less profits, 
and even lower rents, no pertinacious boy has been found will- 
ing to play godfather to such a prayer. And so, while all man- 
ufacturers are increasing their profits, the common people are 
paternally advised to make themselves scarce, and to try 
whether haply some other hemisphere will afford them beef and 
beer, now that England is too poor to give them anything be- 
yond bread and tea. 



* " Have pity with an unhappy blind man (nothing) ;" " have pity 
with an unhappy blind man (three sous!);" "have pity — (there is 
nobody— to the left) ;" " have pit}^" etc. 



FLOTSAM AKI) JETSAM. 83 

The Municipal authorities of St. Malo are very intelligent. 
They have discovered that from time to time a celestial body, 
vulgarly known as the moon, shines during a portion of the 
night; and having also discovered that the nights of its shin- 
ing can be foretold beforehand, they have come to the conclu- 
sion that it would be a profligate extravagance to light their 
few gas-lamps on such nights. ^Accordingly they do not light 
them. 

But what they have not yet discovered is, that there are 
such objects in nature as clouds, and that they sometimes so 
come between the earth and the moon as to conceal it even 
from St. Malo ; so that the inhabitants sometimes walk over 
the quay, under the impression that they are walking into their 
houses. 

I always hear with impatience this common colloquy between 
masters and servants, or superiors in general and their sub- 
ordinates. " Why did you do this?" they ask.—" Well, I 
thought so-and-so." — " Think ! You shouldn't think, but do 
as I tell you," etc., etc. Whereas, what is wanted is that they 
should think not less but more — in fact, they should think 
sufficiently for the occasion. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Off les Heaux de Brehat, 

2d September, 1874. 
1 have just had one of those frights which are so delightful 
when one looks back at them, and so very much the reverse 
while they last. I had become tired of waiting for the 
weather to settle, and this morning came out of St. Malo 
through the DecoUe channel, bound to round the Land's End if 
the wind would hold in the southwest — or elsewhere if it would 



S4 FLOTSAM AlTD JETSAM. 

not. Now in my way lay those two well-known patches of 
rock, the Roches Douvres and the Barnouic, the nearest road 
lying inside and the usual and safer outside them. Naturally, 
I chose the inside road. There was a considerable deal of 
wind, and so much sea that, some five hours after leaving St. 
Malo, I put on my boots, and battened down. Bat I had no 
doubt as to my course — probably all the less because I had 
never been in those parts before. I passed the beacon of 
Lejon, and soon after made what I supposed to be the beacon 
on the Iloraine rocks, which I meant to leave on my port, or 
left hand, at a fair distance, so as to go between them and the 
Barnouic ledge. Imagine now my horror and my indignation, 
when Ned announced that he saw another beacon ahead on the 
starboard, or right hand, where no beacon should be according 
to the charts and the sailing directions. The two ghosts were 
nothing to this. There it was sure enough, and now the ques- 
tion was whether we were not too far in with the land, and 
whether this outer, or right-hand beacon, was not the Horaine, 
which was to be left on the left hand. The uncertainty of the 
situation was only increased by the discovery I thought I then 
made, that the beacon previously supposed to be the Horaine 
was not a beacon at all, but a lighthouse. There was then half 
a gale of wind blowing, and a high sea running full in with the 
whole sweep of the Atlantic. We were going a great pace, and 
if we ivere wrong it was a question of another life. I was 
horribly frightened, and thanks to the lively capers of the Billy 
Baby, not a little uncomfortable. But I reckoned that with 
such a sea rocks dangerous to us must show themselves, so I 
sent Ned to the masthead. He reported breakers on both 
sides, but none ahead, so I jumped to the conclusion that the 
inexplicable beacon must be a new one recently placed on the 
Barnouic ledge, and that we were right as we were going. At 
any rate I kept on, and I have now at last got the beacon — or 
as I have now decided it must be, the H^aux lighthouse — on 
such a bearing that, whatever it is, we must be through the 
dangers. The glass is going steadily down, and the wind 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 85 

steadily np, but when once I get clear of the .land I don't care. 
Much against my own private inclinations, and purely out of a 
mean desire to keep up my reputation with Bill, I have made 
believe to dine. I trust it will be set down to my credit, as a 
great action when all accounts are made up. 

A wonderful relief, indeed, is it to feel that one has the 
blessed open sea before one, after getting clear of land and 
rocks laid out in such a Chinese puzzle as these. I think that 
not even the delight of getting safe in is equal to that of get- 
ting safe out ; and yet there are those who fancy that the 
troubles and anxieties of seafaring diminish as the seaman ap- 
proaches the coast — as though ships were commonly lost at sea, 
and not on the land. 



Falmouth, 3d September. 

We have had a shocking bad day. Everybody and every- 
thing on board the Billy Baby is wet through ; the rain has 
come down in one sheet since six o'clock this morning, the 
wind has been blowing all round the compass, and the sky has 
lain upon us in one dull leaden sheet that one could feel on the 
top of one's head. When the wind finally got round to north, 
I did not see my way at all round the Land's End, and deter- 
mined to run into this port and to wait for orders. The port is full 
of vessels, for it is one of those, dear to the seaman, by which 
Nature herself has marked out England for a maritime nation, 
even more distinctly than by surrounding her with seas. Easy 
of entry, always accessible, and offering secure shelter to any 
number of vessels of any size, it has proved a blessed haven to 
many a mariner coming in from the ocean, and it is now more 
than ever a favorite port of arrival and departure for vessels en- 
gaged in long voyages. ♦ 

It is curious enough that, in those days of old when (as the 
hackneyed writers would have us believe) England was a 
thoroughly poor and barbarous country, the great man' s house 
and table were open to all comers, and that all those who held 



86 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

themselves to be of the superior or lordly classes made it their 
pride, as they held it to be their duty, to receive every home- 
less hungry man who came to them. This has all been 
mended, for we have come to see that the possession of the 
good things of the earth involves no obligation toward those 
who do not possess them. We have learned from an ecstatic 
contemplation of the blessed principle of self-interest that the 
one sacred principle in which alone there is hope for mankind 
is that each should acquire all he possibly can, and be approved 
and defended in its retention against all comers. On the land 
every inch is taken up from the centre of the earth to the 
zenith of the heavens, so that the landless man can only stand, 
walk, breathe, and have the light of the sun, moon, and stars 
(for they too presumably belong to the landowner in whose 
zenith for the moment they are) on sufferance. There is there- 
fore this delight in being at sea, that here at least one is not yet 
a trespasser. But how long will this last ? How long will it 
be before the blessed inventions of civilization and property 
freed from obligations are extended to the waters also ? How 
long will it be before a nation which has closed its doors 
against the shelterless and the distressed wayfarer closes its 
ports against the shelterless and distressed mariner ? Is there 
any difference in the nature of the duties of humanity due to 
each ? I see none. By a few gradations the thing may be 
done on the water precisely as it has been done on the land. 
The ports are no man's absolute property now — no more was 
the land once. Like the land, they may be made absolute prop- 
erty. Then a system of out- of -port relief may be framed for 
the distressed mariner ; finally, one or two great ports may be 
created, into which he may be allowed to come on condition 
of abandoning his ship. And then those of us who are lucky 
enough to get possession of one of the old ports once open to 
all, may enjoy our waters in peace, and sail placidly about 
them, fishing their carefully preserved depths in our yachts, 
with such friends as we may choose to invite or such indifferent 
persons as may be able to pay the price we set upon entry. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 87 

Meantime, and as some little step in the right direction, the 
Solent should be cleared of merchantmen just as the Park has 
been cleared of cabs, and should be maintained strictly for 
pleasure-craft, with a force of gun-boats to secure the select 
from the accidents incidental to unskilful navigation. 



4th September. 
It is a melancholy fact that anything is believed to be good 
enough for sailors. And Falmouth being frequented exclu- 
sively by sailors ajffords a very melancholy example of that 
belief. So much trash, trumpery, slop, and shoddy were 
never exposed in shops as are here brought together for pres- 
entation to the admiring eye of the advance-noted seaman. 
Tarpaulin hats, yellow water-proofs, sea mittens, long boots, 
tinned meats, strings of onions, rings, trinkets, and watches, 
all made most conscientiously to sell, are paraded from one end 
of the long street to the other, and from one end to the other 
offer to the landsman's eye a humiliating array of fifteenth- 
class wares. Not so does the sailor regard them. Nothing will 
tear Bill away from a certain collection of cheap finery, and I 
am certain the reason he was so long after my letters this morn- 
ing was that he was engaged in some stupendous sacrifice of 
wages on the shrine of the being he adores. 

****** 

Latitude 51° 20' 19" N., 5th September. 
I left Falmouth yesterday morning at ten, rounded the Long- 
ships at midnight in company with a whole fleet of steamers 
and sailing vessels, some with lights and some without, and 
turned in for a sleep with the comfortable knowledge that we 
were safe at sea again. On a careful study of the tides I liad 
worked out and set the most scientific series of courses ; they 
have been faithfully sailed ; the distances are recorded to a 
quarter of a mile ; and yet now after making up my day's 
work I find that on a run of seventy-six miles I am put nearly 



88 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

two miles further north by observation than I am made to be 
by my dead reckoning. And as botli are probably in error, 
and may be in error in contrary Avays, I can't rely upon being 
within at least four miles of a given parallel of latitude. So 
that if I went on at the same rate for seven thousand miles I 
might accumulate an uncertainty of four hundred miles. But 
seamen have asiraj^le way of accounting for differences between 
the position of a vessel as ascertained by dead reckoning and as 
ascertained by observation — which is to set it down to " cur- 
rent," and thus they wipe out all mistakes and make them- 
selves right every day at twelve o'clock. A comfortable pro- 
ceeding, yet which must not be too thoroughly relied upon, as 
one would think ; and one which I, who am supposed to know 
and to have allowed for the current, ought not to have to resort 
to. But in fact you cannot know currents except within cer- 
tain very narrow limits, and between the Land's End and the 
Bristol Channel they have a bad habit of setting in various 
directions at various rates, and in any event we can't go on 
long without making something and acquiring a certainty, the 
continual possibility of doing which is after all the sole advan- 
tage of coasting. Charts in general are very deficient in infor- 
mation as to the set of the tides. The French charts give no 
indications whatever of it, and the English, though better, are 
not at all complete in this respect. Another point which really 
calls for attention is the ambiguity and amphibology of the 
official sailing directions. They continually give you as lead- 
ing marks objects not specified on the charts, which render 
the marks practically no marks at all. For instance I am told 
that " Godolphin hill in line with Carndu point leads two 
thirds of a mile south-east of the Runnel stone," but as neither 
Godolphin hill nor Carndu point arc to be found on the chart, 
I am no better off than I was before. The directions should 
be collated with the charts to be intelligible, for on a coast one 
sees for the first time it is often difficult enough to pick out a 
given windmill, a given house, or a given clump of trees, even 
when they are laid down on the chart. The directions are 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 89 

full, too, of the most insane English, and of sentences which 
assert precisely the reverse of what they are presumably in- 
tended to convey. Here are some which I have come across 
quite casually. Writing of the leading marks for the Bristol 
Channel, the author says : " Few of those formerly given 
can now be recognized, and are otherwise inapplicable from 
the alterations along the channels." The second allegation 
here is that few of the marks are " inapplicable," whereas the 
meaning presumably is that few are applicable. Then in the 
directions for the east coast of Ireland I read that certain 
landmarks " were erected for the purpose of enabling vessels 
to readily distinguish between Tramore Bay and the entrance 
to Waterford Harbor, a mistake that has been fatal to a great 
many vessels ;" the sense of which is that the mistake of read- 
ily distinguishing this difference has been fatal ! These are 
mere specimens of the confused and misleading writing that 
occurs at nearly every page of books which it is absolutely es- 
sential should be plainly and clearly written, and which, in- 
deed, there is no excuse for writing otherwise. I would pray 
the Hydrographic Office to have all their works carefully edited 
by somebody possessing that rarest of all accomplishments, the 
power of writing plain thmgs in plain English, and I am sure 
everybody in the trade will agree with me. 

****** 

Waterford, 8th September. 
Sailing yesterday up this beautiful river, seeing the smiling 
green uplands and the dista,ut purple mountains on each side of 
me, and answering the many boatmen who came alongside to 
ask if " my anuer" wanted a pilot, I thought mournfully of 
the system of Government which has reduced people in our 
English island to wish that this our Irish one might be un- 
loosed from her moorings in the deep and set two thousand 
miles farther away in the Atlantic. And the people of 
the country, as one comes mto contact with them, only 
add to the melancholy of that thought ; while the nature of 
the rule under which they live shows that it is really enter- 



90 FLOTSAM AN^D JETSAM. 

tained. Dirty, laborious, half-clad, half-fed, gay, mirthful, 
helpful, and servile withal, these poor Irish bear the character 
of the slave written in plain characters upon them. And on 
every side is the evidence that the Imperial rule is still one of 
force — only endured, but never yet accepted. The police walk 
not singly, but by twos in the streets — consider what that 
means — they occupy every railway-station, they are armed 
with sword-bayonets. No English minister — not even now, 
after Irish Church Bills and Land Bills — would venture to 
allow the formation of Irish volunteer corps. Surely here, 
too, is another series of facts calculated to make us suspect 
that the blessed system of government under which we live is 
not so perfect nor even so ingenious after all that has been said 
of it. For it rests not upon its own merits, but solely upon 
force, here in the only one of the British islands of which the 
people still require rule of any kind. I met to-day Miles-na- 
Coppaleen disguised as a car- driver, and as he was driving me 
about I asked him if there were any Fenians still in Ireland. 
" Bedad, sir," said he, "they say there's a good many 
av em — but you niver know who is and who isn't." " Are 
you a Fenian ?" — " I wouldn't be bowld to be one av I 
wanted (go an, Kathleen !) ; there's divil a man ye can thrust 
(go an !), no, nor woman either — ye know that, yer anner." 
****** 



CHAPTER XTX. 

Off the Hook, 12th September. 
There is much of the Neapolitan in these Irish, mucli of the 
same impossibly ragged mind and clothing, much of the same 
caressing tone and language, much too of the same disregard 
for facts, and withal most of the qualities of an enslaved race. 
" May the blessing of God follow yer anner ; sure now, you'll 
give me something just to keep the childer from starvin'— ^or 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 91 

your welcome to poor ould Ireland.'''' This was said to me up 
the country, and who could resist the appeal of a woman who 
had taken sufficient notice of one to discover or to guess that 
one was here for the first time ? For say what we may, we 
do all value the attention of our fellow-creatures — even of a 
beggar-woman. 

There is a blind beggar who stands on the way to the rail- 
way station here. As I passed him this morning, he said, 
*' Dhrop a copper into a poor man's hat." To see the effect, 
I dropped a shilling, which on fingering he recognized imme- 
diately. "Good luck to your anner," said he, "and may 
the blessings," etc., etc. "Sure an' it's the first piece of 
silver I've touched for a month." — " Come now," I remon- 
strated, " say a week." — " No, by the holy Sire, it's mor'n 
a month. May the blessings," etc. Now, coming back 
from the station, I was met by the same appeal, and this time 
I dropped a sixpence into the outstretclied hat. " Long life 
to your anner, it's the first bit o' silver I've touched for a 
week," exclaimed the old sinner in the accents of the purest 
truth and the deepest gratitude. — " Why, you humbug, I gave 
you a shilling myself this morning." His face underwent a 
change, but he instantly answered in a deprecating tone, " Are 
you the gintleman that gave me the shilling ; sure now, why 
didn^t you say so, and I ivouldn't have towld the lie ?^* This 
pleased me much. 

In contrast to this was the last Irishman* we spoke. lie 
came alongside in a boat — a fine fellow — with a certain sturdy 
look about his face only just tempered by a bright, twinkling, 
untrustworthy eye. After the usual marine talk had made us 
the friends all men seem to be on the water, " Are you a 
Fenian?" said I. — " Begorra, and I am in my heart," 
replied he, " but hwhat's the use ?"— ♦" Well," I returned, to 
draw him, " it I were an Irishman, I think I should be a Fe- 
nian." — " Divil a fear of your being a Faynian, you've got too 
much money. God send you a lucky passage anyhow." And 
with this he lay down to his sculls and left us. 

;|« * * :|c * '^ ^K 



92 FLOTSAM Al^D JETSAM. 

At Sea, 13th September. 
It is surprising how a solitary vagabond Ufe grows upon one. 
I left Waterford last night intending to go round the Land's 
End again, and so away to the eastward, and now, when half- 
way there, I find myself debating whether I shall not rather 
run across to Ushant, and work down through the French 
ports on the Bay to the north of Spain, and thence through 
the Straits to the Mediterranean. The weather is enough to 
tempt one to go anywhere from this advantageous position, so 
well to the westward. The barometer is steadily rising, a fine 
northerly breeze is blowing, and though exposed here to the 
whole range of the Atlantic, one is only aware of it through 
the long gentle swell which always rolls in, and over which the 
Billy Baby rides like a duck. It is a splendid opportunity to 
go south, and in all probability the last there will be before 
the equinoctial gales set in, and I feel much inclined to let 
every thmg slide and seize it. But even the least important of 
us has what he thinks important engagements surrounding him 
in that network which we all seem bent on contriving to take 
away our liberties ; and I, too, alas ! have retained more or 
less of the notion that I ought to be in certain places at certain 
times. Wherefore I suppose I ought to carry out my original 
plan, and once more leave aside all tempting projects of dis- 
tant voyage. Yet in weather like this it is a horror only to 
think of going back to London and winter when Italy and sum- 
mer are practically so near, and when one is over the thresh- 
old as it were. There is only this consolation, that like all 
unendurable things and men, even London and its inhabitants 
have qualities when once one has made up one's mind to fre- 
quent them. 



At Sea, 13th September. 
I don't know that I ever felt more satisfaction with myself 
than I did to-day after giving Ned his first lesson in naviga- 
tion, and acquiring the certainty that he really knew what a 



FLOTSAM AN J) JETSAM. 9M 

7ienitli distance was. In presenting to liini this <intirely new 
notion of takina^ the sun, and of doing such thinsjs with the 
resulting figures as to bring out his hititude, I felt something^ 
of what I fancy must he the missionary spirit, and experi- 
enced a real pleasure in watching his mind take the successive 
steps from principle to inference, and from inference to calcu- 
lation ; and what was most pleasing of all was to dog his in- 
telligence as it moved, to see it amble gently along through the 
mere acceptance of my propositions, then hesitate when it 
came to the jump ; and finally, after many refusals, to have the 
satisfaction of coaxing it over, and sec it landed on the other 
side. Instruction is commonly confounded with bald asser- 
tion on the one hand and blind belief on the other, and thus 
understood it is a hideous process ; but it is one thing to tell a 
child with authority that two and two make four, and another 
thing to make a child understand the proposition, and adopt it 
for itself. So, also, it is really interesting to find a man who 
lias no notion what an angle is, and to bring him at last to see 
how it is that a sextant will measure an angle, and how he can 
find his latitude by believing that there are three hundred and 
sixty degrees in a circle, and that the angle of incidence is 
equal to the angle of reflection, or by acting and calculating 
as though he believed it. For one really must have faith 
in mathematics at sea to that extent, contrariwise to faith 
ashore, which never extends to acts, and still less to calcula- 
tions. Yet I am told that somebody has discovered that the 
angle of incidence is not equal to the angle of reflection, which, 
if it be true, upsets all our instruments and all our acquired 
facts. Moreover, I saw yesterday in an Irish paper a letter 
from a gentleman in Dublin, who declares that he has found 
the means of squaring the circle, which he says still further 
upsets everything. It is very distressing. Perhaps nothing 
at all is true, even in geometry, and perhaps, now that I fancy 
I am steering a series of scientific courses which will take me 
on a rhumb-line to the Longships, I am going quite another 
road ; and, if so, what kind of responsibility have I not in- 



94 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

curred toward Ned by teaching him my beliefs as articles of 

faith, and telling him nothing at all of those new discoveries ? 

****** 

Off the Longsiiips, 14th September. 
Since we last passed thi-s spot a Jersey brig was wrecked 
here in a southerly gale, and all hands lost but one, who was 
picked up by another vessel. It is certainly a nasty spot in 
bad weather, and it is net so long since the inhabitants of the 
coast believed that it had been specially made so by Provi- 
dence in order to give them good opportunities of wrecking, 
often incidentally accompanied by the murder of any sailor 
ill-advised enough to be washed ashore with his cargo. 
These were very wicked people, affording the only instance on 
record of any beings not of superhuman rank taking away 
from him that hath not, even that which he hath. 

^ ^ ^ H* 'J* 't* 

At Sea, Tuesday, 15th September. 
It has been alleged that there exists a specific disease of the 
brain-tissue called " genius." And, like all allegations made 
with audacity, this has been repeated without inquiry until 
one might fancy there was something in it. Now I do not 
believe it. I regard it as one of those idle words that men 
speak, originally invented and subsequently adopted in order 
to excuse the disposition we all feel not to take any pains 
about anything in the universe. Let me be understood. I 
do not say that we are all equal in point of moral and intel- 
lectual quality ; but I do say that there is none of us so im- 
mensely superior as to be able to produce work that thousands 
of others might not equally produce if they would only take 
the trouble. It is hardly necessary to say much in support 
of that proposition, for it seems to me capable of demon- 
stration. As thus : Socrates, Bacon, Homer, Dante, Shake- 
speare, Michael Angelo, Reynolds, Richelieu, Sully, Cromwell, 
Goethe, Byron, are all of them men who are credited with 
this genius ; and we of the meaner sort are accustomed to con- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 95 

sole ourselves for our inferiority by setting it down merely to 
the want of that divine spark which we call genius. But now 
how can the excellence of philosophy be recognized save by a 
philosopher, of poetry but by a poet, of art but by an artist, 
of statesmanship but by a statesman ? Can any take the 
soundings of the sea who has not line enough to reach to the 
bottom ? Can any appreciate the poet who has not all the 
poet's qualities, or the artist, or the statesman ? I wot not. 
And so the fact that these poets, artists, and statesmen have 
been appreciated is sufficient to show that there have been 
many men cndow^ed with their qualities, and who only have not 
thought, spoken, painted, carved, or acted. Here, then, lies 
the sole difference between the so-called man of genius and 
those who recognize him as such, of themselves and not upon 
mere hearsay — that the one has set himself to work while the 
others have been content to look on, having all the time the 
same qualities which, had they but had the courage, would have 
produced the like effects. It is no doubt very pleasant and 
consoling to believe that we have all pulled well up to the 
collar, and that if we have not stirred this huge machine behind 
us, it is because God has not given us strength to do it. To 
say that looks, too, so like modesty. But in fact it is mostly 
mere cowardice or idleness that prompts the conclusion. All 
men are not equal, but they are all very much more nearly 
equal than they affect to believe ; and though neither assertion 
is quite true, it is yet more nearly true to say that everybody 
can do everything than to say, as most do, that very few can 
do anything. 



CHAPTER XX. 

* 

10th September, 1874. 
I HAVE often asked myself which is the most pleasing stage 
in a successful love-making, whether the going forth to the en- 
counter when as vet one knows not what one's fate will be in 



96 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

it ; the first encouragements, so slight and delicate as to be im- 
perceptible to all but one's own eye ; the open avowal mutually 
given and received ; or the final admitted lover-state. The 
common theory is that this last stage is the best because it 
gives the least trouble and anxiety ; yet I should say that the 
first stage is by far better, precisely because it gives the most. 
There is something very delicious in the emotion of watching 
for the first movements of that particular woman who has 
taken one's fancy, and who is therefore for the time the one 
only woman in all the world ; something very absorbing in the 
eager watch one sets over every gesture, every glance of her 
eye, every turn of her head, every inflection of her voice, in 
order to surprise, if it be so, an indication of her feelings. All 
that disappears when once this stage is passed ; and when that 
last one of perfect understanding is reached, the whole inter- 
est of the matter subsides into, and is centred in, the mere 
question of fitness of companionship. Here, then, is a 
grand consolation for the unsuccessful lover, that much as he 
may, from a sense of decency, lament his failure to arrive at 
the last stages, he has yet in passing through the first reaped 
advantages which would have been diminished in exact pro- 
portion as he advanced toward success. For this also is true, 
that the whole delight of that insane passion lies in this — not 
that that woman loves you, but that you love her. That may 
stir your vanity, but this moves your very soul. So at least I 
am informed, and believe. 



Trouville, 20th September. 
Whether it is better to love before marriage or after, 
whether it is possible to do both, or whether love is not in its 
nature a state of ecstatic self-mystification which cannot be 
lasting, is not dissimilar from that question whether the 
*' provisoire" can be made " d^finitif," upon which everybody 
here is engaged. And. it is not unimproving to discuss them 
all in the course of a long drive through a charming country, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 97 

sitting opposite to two still more charming pairs of bright 
eyes belonging to as many " Imp6rialistes enragees. " But 
what I can't comprehend is the admiration which all the hack 
journalists of Europe pretend to feel for the English system of 
government, and the readiness with which all readers seem to 
have adopted the complacent theory that any people that will 
starve quietly, and be miserable without revolution, is the 
happiest and best on the earth. And it is especially exasper- 
ating to hear that journalistic humbug repeated, and the supe- 
rior natural prosperity of England cited as a proof of it in the 
midst of a country where the agricultural laborer eats meat 
every day. Two points at least the French have of superior- 
ity to us — that love of justice which implies hatred of crime, 
and which makes even my fair friends declared haters of 
Bazaine, and that spirit of courtesy which is based upon the 
respect that mankind owes to each other, and which makes 
this famous Marshal stand, at seventy, hat in hand, talking to 
them with all the manner of a deferential dancing-master. 
There is hope for a nation that still believes in justice and 
politeness (which is but a kind of justice) ; there is none for a 
nation which habitually excuses great crime from punishment, 
and makes bad manners an article of faith. 



Tkouville, 23d September. 
The sun has crossed the line to-day, and henceforth we go 
down-hill in the year toward cold, darkness and bad weather. 
I always fancy that one lives a whole life in each year, and, 
just as every May I feel young, lusty, and full of purpose, so 
at this time I feel old, worn-out, and discouraged. It has 
been found by poets and philosophers, and even by metaphy- 
sicians and grammarians, an admirable provision -which has 
supplied us in the objects and movements of the universe with 
an analogy for everything with which the mind of man can 
possibly occupy itself. We have assumed, possibly from 
mere ignorance, to divide ourselves into the two departments 



98 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

— material and spiritual ; but it is sufficiently remarkable that 
when we wish to be really intelligible either to ourselves or to 
others we always find ourselves, in speaking of the spiritual, 
driven back upon the material for our illustrations, and thus 
forced to admit that there is a close analogy between the two 
— an analogy, indeed, so close that it is hard to say whether 
it be not identity. 



I have been to breakfast in one of the many mansions of 
William the Conqueror, and I have been glad, so far, to make 
his acquaintance, because I believe him to have been very 
hardly treated by the historians, and to have been perfectly 
justified in asserting his right against the perjured and usurp- 
ing Harold. I was shown a chair (of the time of Louis 
XIII. !), which belonged to him, and I have come back doubt- 
ing more than ever whether the condition of mankind has really 
been improved since the barbarous times we are taught so much 
to despise. My quarrel with civilization, as it is called, is that 
it is a failure in material matters ; that it has not made men in 
general to be better clothed, better fed, and better housed ; that 
it has not diminished in general by one atom, but rather 
increased, the burden of labor. Yet, if this be so, civilization 
has not kept the least of its promises. How it has kept the 
greater, those may judge who are able to see how thoroughly 
all sense of law has been lost, and what ready victims men 
have become to the most egregious and manifest swindles 



Trouville, 29th September. 
I have been very lucky to-day. I have managed to run a 
steamer ashore by sturdily refusing to give way to her as I 
was painfully entering the port ; I have had a most improving 
conversation with some English oyster dredgers ; and I have 
seen at least a score of perfectly-dressed women. All this 
shows that one should take one's own course. The English 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 99 

fishermen start with fewer advantages than the French in the 
oyster fishery, yet they are far better at it ; French women 
start with fewer advantao-es than English in dressing, yet they 
are far better at that. One principal reason is that each woman 
dresses herself, instead of all being dressed to one pattern by 
the Fashion. For instance, instead of there being, as in Eng- 
land, one only hat, I have already seen here almost as many 
hats as women. There is one especially which fascinates me 
— a round flat sailor's hat, with roses round it, stuck saucily on 
the very back of the head. And, dear me, what a number of 
pretty people there are here still ! 

I am exercised to find at Trouville a fine marble pedestal, 
inscribed, " Au due de Morny la viile de Deauville. " The 
statue once presumably surmounting this pedestal has been re- 
moved, which makes the inscription comic, and affords yet 
another proof that emperors, kings, and others who assume the 
right to give names, are not the fountains of honor, except in a 
purely declaratory sense. They may put the whole machinery 
of the State in motion to tack a title of honor to a man ; they 
may consecrate it by laws and support it by armies ; but if the 
quality of honor is not in the man the title means nothing, and 
will be totally ignored or, what is worse, despised. It is not 
in the power of any potentate to take a stockjobbing chapman, 
a cheating tradesman, or a swindler of any kind, and to make 
him be received by the world as a dux or leader of men. 
When a Sovereign takes such an one and declares solemnly, 
" This is a master-man, an earl, a count, a duke, by so much 
superior to all you others, and by so much the more entitled to 
your respect," it is not well either for the selected one or for 
the Sovereign that the others should be able to answer with 
one accord, " You tell a lie." Nay, it is far belter to be the 
leader without being called so, than to be* called so without 
being it. 



100 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Trouville, 25tli September. . 

There are few books which teach less or suggest more than 
that one of Erasmus which he called the Eucomium Morice. 
Wherefore there are few books more valuable or delightful to 
read. In the course of the Praise of Folly, to which he de- 
votes the work, he gives a delightful sketch of the truly wise 
man as he has always been understood — one who is ill-favored, 
poor, dirty, badly-dressed, repulsive, occupied solely with mat- 
ters in which nobody takes any interest, a stranger to all pas- 
sions and to all human emotions, wanting nothing, thankful 
for nothing, owning no ties and no gratitude, passing his time 
in ecstatic admiration of himself, believing himself to be the 
only successful man, the only powerful, the only truly rich, of 
the world, and despising the whole of the human race besides 
himself and some two or three others like him. '* "Who," 
asks Erasmus, *' would choose such an one for a friend or an 
acquaintance, much less for a father or a husband ?" Who, 
indeed. How thankful then should we not all feel that we are 
the fools we know ourselves to be. 

****** 

26th September. 

It is strange that men reflect so little upon the meaning of 
the verbal and material ornaments which they are all so eager 
to obtain as setting them outside the vulgar. Take the mean- 
est title, that of Esquire, which signifies that he who bears it 
is the faithful servant and follower of those who have devoted 
themselves to the highest and noblest deeds, and that he is in a 
probationary state, from which he will rise to be himself a 
knight only by the entertainment of high aims and the pursuit 
of a pure and spotless life. How many are there who hold 
that the mere acceptance of this title implies any such obliga- 
tion ? And how much more truly may the same be said of 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 101 

such superior titles as duke, prince, and king ! Look, now, at 
the material ornaments. A crown or a coronet signifies that 
its wearer possesses all the virtues (symbolized by the jewels 
with which it is studded) united in one ; the robe signifies the 
majesty with which its wearer should be clothed in all his acts 
and words, just as the ermine of the judge signifies purity that 
can endure no spot, and as the wedding garment of the bride 
signifies the purity of mind and body which she brings to the 
altar. I wonder how people can have the face to clothe them- 
selves so often in lies, and to walk about the world like so 
many dishonored promissory notes. 



27th September. 
This must assuredly be the paradise of idlers. I have sel- 
dom seen a place where the time passes so quickly, so pleas- 
antly, and with so little effort, in the utter absence of anything 
like an occupation. There are not very many people left now, 
but he who is fortunate enough to possess a few friends among 
them is petted and spoilt in a way likely to make the ordinary 
life-militant a burden to him. People are ready to amuse 
themselves, and above all anxious to amuse their friends, and 
do not disdain to do it by simple unassuming methods. A 
drive to Dives, relieved by a game of " quatre coins," and an 
impromptu quadrille in a casual orchard by the wayside ; an ex- 
pedition to drink milk at a farmhouse ; a journey to Honfleur 
to gloat over the departure of that commerce which Trouville 
is rapidly taking away from it — all these are, for some reason, 
not by any means a bore, but the most delightful pastimes 
possible. Or still better is it to drive to an outlying fanner's 
for a whole day out. You take your dinner with you, or 
rather the materials, for you are to cook it yourselves, and the 
whole of the operation is one charming series of adventures 
which make everybody laugh, although, or perhaps because, 
there is nothing in them. Here is Madame la Vicomtesse beat- 
ing up a " fromage a la creme" till her dainty arms ache, and 



102 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

SO carefully canting it to dry that it incontinently covers the 
floor of the dairy ; here is another lady chopping herbs, ma- 
nipulating mushrooms, and trying all she knows to " faire 
revenir" the fowl which it is confidently hoped will turn out a 
fricasse. Here again is the Corate tunefully cutting up every- 
thing he finds at hand into the fish, and here the Vicomte 
weeping ruefully over the strongest onion that ever man sliced. 
One volunteer is devoted to turning the leg of mutton which is 
browning on the spit before an immense wood-fire, and slowly 
absorbing the soul of the garlic cunningly introduced into it. 
Another is singeing his eye-brows over the " soupe a I'oign- 
on," and vainly endeavoring to keep the beans from capsiz- 
ing every two minutes into the ashes. At last you are all burnt 
out, and basely leave the burden and heat of the cooking to 
the farmer's wife. And now to dinner. What fun to find the 
Comte declare that his own fish is uneatable ! What a triumph 
to discover that the gigot is the best ever roasted ; what ineffa- 
ble delight to learn that although everybody has washed his 
hands in the fricasse, it is cooked and tender ; and what a 
crowning victory that the " fromage a la creme" (which has 
apparently been secretly wiped up from the dairy tiles) is deli- 
cious even to those who helped to make it 1 You have earned 
your dinner, you enjoy it as never dinner was enjoyed, you 
eat it in a ceaseless fire of banter, and drive home again under 
a moon twice as big and twice as bright as nature, to wonder 
why it is that you never amused yourself before in your life. 

:|e * 4i ^ * * 

28th September. 
We seem to spend half our lives in living and the other half 
in thinking of it. While ^Ye live w^e do not think, nor when 
we do think do we life. No man ever learns anything after 
thirty. AVhen once he has passed that age, if he should by 
chance meet aught that appears new to him, he at once puts it 
through a slight process of mental elaboration, and brings it 
down to the category of one of those things which he knew and 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 103 

had accepted already. If it were possible to get an accurate 
notion of the mind of any single individual, it would be found 
that in fact it consists of some eight or ten principles which he 
lias accepted as rules in the great departments of life, and of 
one or two ideas which he has had himself, and which he 
would wish to accept if he dared. Once this stage reached, 
you may present to him the most extraordinary and novel phe- 
nomena, apparently the most opposed to his principles and his 
ideas, and he will yet find means to bring them by one method 
or another into his little circle. It is after all not so diflicult 
as it appears. For things are admittedly not what they seem, 
and therefore any given phenomenon may be fairly brought 
down to its true proportions and significance other than such as 
it presents on the outside. AVhy, then, if ray principles will 
make it intelligible upon a certain possible supposition, should 
I not adopt that supposition ? A man has committed suicide 
under circumstances which made his life apparently a most 
pleasant and successful one. Say that I have adopted the 
principle that there is no God and no law. Then I bring it all 
to this, that there must have been something which we do not 
know in his life which rendered it impossible to meet his en- 
gagements, and that therefore he had perfectly the right thus 
to declare himself bankrupt. But if now I believe that there is 
a law and no God, it becomes a question whether the law would 
allow him thus to repudiate his engagements. Or if I believe 
that there exist both God and law, I can but put the act down 
to ignorance or to insanity. In either event I arrive at a con- 
clusion not upon the real merits of the case, but by referring its 
apparent merits to the principles I believe, and by adding there- 
to the belief that its real merits must be in consonance with one 
of my principles. But what is impossible to me is to admit 
for an instant that the affair has taken place outside my circle 
of belief. Thus it is that the man of the fewest beliefs has a 
task to perform with any given phenomenon by far the most 
difficult, because he has to reduce the most diverse and irregu- 
lar acts down to the fewest heads. This shows us how it is 



104 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

that faith is really so blessed, and it should lead us to respect 
every kind of faith, and never to blaspheme even those which 
are apparently the most absurd. He who believes most can 
explain most, and do what we will, we never can escape from 
the necessity of explaining everything that happens. 

****** 
I once knew a man (he was over fifty) capable of travelling 
alone with a pretty woman known to him without making love 
to her ; but I never yet knew a woman or a child who could 
remain quiet half an hour in a company where no notice was 
taken of them. I dined yesterday at a house whence a young 
lady departed in the worst of bad tempers, because the hostess 
monopolized the attentions of the men ; and I have just seen a 
baby of three years pour a shovelful of sand into "his mother's 
coffee, because she would not leave her breakfast to look at his 
feats of equitation upon a stick. I believe this craving for at- 
tention to be the chief attraction that makes women and chil- 
dren so delightful. It is a kind of indirect flattery, as though 
they should say, " I only exist by virtue of the words you say 
to me, and the looks you cast upon me," and there has not yet 
been found a man able to resist such cogent reasoning. To do 
that one would have to regard women and children as creatures 
more or less reasonable, not invented for the sole purpose of 
flattering grown-up men. 

****** 

Shoreham, 29th September. 
Life is one series of disillusions. I haul out of Trouville 
basin, and choose a place which I have marked as a bed of 
beautiful soft mud, only to find myself when the tide goes 
down on top of a sunken boat ; I leave the pleasant shore and 
delightful memories with a fine westerly breeze, which develops 
into three parts of a gale of wind before I reach my port ; and 
now here is Sheba declining to eat porridge anymore, and Bill, 
who wants to write to his mamma — as though the Billy Baby 
could not contain all his affections and thoughts ! It is enough 
to make one go to London and pay all one's quarter's bills. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 105 



CHAPTER XXII. 

London, 3d October. 
London is, I think, the only place in the world in which one 
can't endure to be alone. I suppose it is that in such a crowd 
as is always here one feels one's loneliness more than when 
there is nobody to look at it. Or maybe it is that there is 
something too exciting in the contact of other men and women 
to allow one to be content with that mere self-sufficient train of 
work and thouglit which in other places is so delicious. There 
is something feverish in the very air, something that whips one 
into a race for excitements of such kind as may be obtained 
easily. To read the newspapers, to receive and answer letters, 
to hear the gossip, and to see one's friends, become matters of 
necessity ; to read in the proper sense of the word, to think to 
any good purpose, or to dine alone, are matters of impossibil- 
ity. And so it is that after a few days in town one becomes 
so surrounded by engagements, and so launched upon undertak- 
ings of a small kind, that it seems impossible one should ever 
get away again. 

****** 

The man who, going to a town infested by thieves, and be- 
ing recommended to carry a pistol, objected that the thieves 
would steal that too, was not so unwise in his generation, if we 
may judge by ours. 

It is terrible to think how rare a courage is required to make 
any real effective use of the arms which nature has given to all 
of us. Rather than see with their eyes and reason with their 
intelligence, men will commit themselves body and soul to the 
first bold highwayman they meet. We hand over our religion 
to the priest, our liberties to the policeman, our knowledge to 
the philosopher, our public affairs to the politician, as though 
they were no business at all of ours, and think we have done 
well when we hand over to them our money besides, so as to 



106 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

make the race of usurpers and the desire for usurpation eternal. 
For truly speaking each man is bound to be priest, policeman, 
philosopher, and statesman for himself. The result of his de- 
clining and thinking to delegate these his most important func- 
tions, is that the modern highwayman no longer offers an alter- 
native, but demands his money and his life — ^and receives both 
to do what he will with them. 

* * * * * * 

We English are a people of small niggling minds. We it is 
who invent potato-parers, lemon-squeezers, patent axles, and 
new coal-scuttles ; and so appreciate them that any man who 
can claim one such thing may make a fortune with it. But if 
it be merely a great idea that he has conceived, or a great 
principle that he would enforce, he had best hold his tongue, 
unless he is prepared to take to himself, and to enjoy as his 
reward, cursing, reviling, contempt, and poverty. There are 
indeed those who are equal to this, for it is one of the grand 
mistakes to suppose that there is no enjoyment in the evil 
things of this world, when a man is sustained by the knowledge 
that he is honest, or any enjoyment in the good things when 
that knowledge is absent. This is why those who have the 
good things are so anxious to remain in ignorance and inac- 
tion. They always fear they shall discover themselves to be 
impostors. 

****** 

An ingenious idea is that, for aught we know, we may be as 
surprised when we die as a man is when he awakes, to find that 
we have been dreaming till then, and have only then come back 
to realities. Of course it may be equally well said that for 
aught we know it may be precisely the reverse ; and this, in- 
deed, is the common belief. I myself sometimes think that if 
this life plays anything like so potent and beneficial a part in 
the next as the next does in this, it hardly deserves all the hard 
things that are said of it. Now the idea I have quoted rests 
upon the assumption that we shall remember, that we shall 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 107 

know this life in the next ; whereas the whole influence of the 
next life upon this arises from the fact that we do not know it, 
and that we therefore fear it beyond measure. When we are 
all engaged in seeking knowledge, it seems humiliating enough 
to remember that we only respect, much less fear, that which 
we know not. As soon as we thoroughly understand anything 
in the universe, we incontinently despise it, and run away after 
something else. A man who can explain to himself why a 
woman loves him, who thinks he can see that it is for his intel- 
lect, for his looks, for his position, or for his money, cares 
nothing for it. But if only her love for him is inexplicable 
upon any reasonable grounds — if it appears to be in defiance of 
all laws and in contradiction of all possibility — then he will 
prize it and wear it as the brightest jewel of his life. 
****** 

It is the least of all things that a man should be honest ; and 
withal the rarest. For although we all know that none of our 
neighbors can deceive us, we all believe that we can deceive 
them into taking the semblance for the reality. And what is 
still more amusing is that each one of us believes that he alone 
of all men is entitled to be dishonest, that each claims to be 
paid in truth and to repay in falsehood. So that as far as any 
advantage to be gained is concerned, it comes at last precisely 
to the same thmg as if all dealt in truth alone. 

****** 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

PoRTSLADE, Sunclay, October 11. 

I SHOULD like much to get at Bill's inner convictions on the 

subject of Dress and Society. He tried me once when bound 

for a ball at Cowes on a wet night by putting out my sea-boots 

well and duly greased. He believes that a white tie may be 



108 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

worn unto seventy times seven, and he has sent me out to dine 
and stay the night with nothing but a double-breasted gray 
homespun, embroidered all over with pockets, for my only dress 
waistcoat. Now, this morning I warned him that some ladies 
were coming to tea to-day. On my arrival with them I found 
knives, forks, and soup-plates ready laid, my last pot of apri- 
cot jam open on the table, and five bottles of wine on the side- 
locker. Bill himself immediately appeared in the unwonted 
glory of a paper-collar and a violet flannel shirt, while in order 
the better to display it he had discarded his coat altogether. 
His face was washed up to a point of shininess I have never 
seen equalled, and as he appeared, bearing with elephantine 
grace the teapot, he blushed like a girl at the sense of his own 
magnificence. 

I daresay now that if I were to tell Bill that there is any 
higher or other standard of fine dresing than a paper-collar and 
violet shirt-sleeves, he would suppose I was joking. And of 
this I am certain, that he would not think of believing me were 
I to tell him that he looks far better in his blue jersey and 
without any collar at all. 



October 12. 
There are, I think, three really good moments in life. Two 
of them may be left to the experience or the conjectures of 
each ; the third certainly is that when, dog-tired, you throw 
yourself down anyhow anywhere, and feel yourself passing into 
that thick, black sleep that has no memory or tinge of the 
outer life, and from which earthquakes would not wake you. 
This is a moment one always seems to get on board ship, even 
if one has not been on deck all the previous night. ^Yho shall 
paint the intense luxury of turning into one's little bed and 
jamming oneself up in a last struggle with the heavy eye-lids, 
knowing that one will neither turn nor move, but will find one- 
self jammed up exactly in the same position to-morrow morn- 
ing ? Then with one plunge, all knowledge, all feeling, all 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 109 

memory, all strife and trouble, all that is mean and low, and 
withal all that is great and high, are left behind — and one is 
bathed in grateful non-existence. Yet there are those who pre- 
tend that death is in itself horrible. Ah ! if it were only like 
this sleep ! 

****** 

1 9th October. 

Two days ago I was invited to dinner " to meet an escaped 
convict," whom I found to be, so far as I can judge upon a 
short acquaintance, simply one of the noblest and finest men I 
have ever met — one of the few whom no money could tempt 
to betray a trust, and no fear force to desert a principle. He 
proved this in the sight of all men by his acts ; for that he was 
condemned, and having now escaped he is at this moment be- 
ing tracked by the police. When I saw him, poor who had 
had millions in liis grasp, full of courage who had endured un- 
told miseries, eager for the right who had suffered so many 
wrongs as to make a belief in it almost an impossibility, and 
when I thought of the sleek rogues, A, B, and C, who arc pro- 
tected by what is called the law in the possession of stolen 
moneys, and who with the produce of their thievings have been 
allowed to buy not only immunity, but position and honor, I 
felt sick at heart, and inclined to believe that all virtue must be 
lost in this world. 

This morning I saw two small urchins condemned to prison 
for four days for playing cards, and a third sentenced to three 
days for playing at pitch and toss ; and I thought of the Stock 
Exchange, of Tattersall's, and of the London club whist-tables. 
I also saw a woman who had been taken and put into jail for 
calling on her daughter and refusing to " move on" without 
seeing her. Also I saw a man who had been apprehended on 
a certain charge " remanded," or, in other words, sent back 
to prison on an entirely different charge which had never been 
preferred. 

When one individual has seen such thinos as this in three 



110 FLOTSAM ANT) .lETSAM. 

days, how many injustices must there not be in daily perpetra- 
tion under the forms of law, and how natural must it not be 
that those who directly suffer from them should have a rank- 
ling feeling of discontent ! 

***** 

Nothing is more insecure than an unchallenged reputation. 
That which nobody questions alv/ays passes by a near transition 
into that which nobody cares for, and always finally ends in 
being that which nobody believes. If I had the misfortune to 
be a popular man or a pretty woman I would engage a select 
band of friends to go about and abuse me. Equally an unpop- 
ular man or an ugly woman can have no worse enemi}'^ than the 
friend who defends them from the common opinion. For in 
each case the opposition only brings out the strength of the 
strong side and shows it to be greater than v/as ever before sus- 
pected, or than ever would have been discovered had it not 
been challenged. It is the unfailing trick of conversation to 
modify and qualify whatever has been last said, the secret ob- 
ject being always not to deny the statement altogether, but to 
substitute for it the improved statement of the interlocutor. 
When you declare that A B has not the most perfect qualities, 
nor C D the most perfect features, in London, I cannot any- 
how help replying that they nevertheless have remarkable qual- 
ities and features, and I end by talking myself into a greater 
belief in them than ever I had before. So also if you declare 
that E F is even a greater fool than he looks, I at once enter 
the lists to prove that he looks a greater fool than he is, which 
is so far something gained to him. Contradiction is now the 
soul of conversation, and " but " is the polite form in which it 
is expressed. 

***** * 

Just as we most of us circulate the best-looking of our pho- 
tographs among our acquaintances, so we most of us desire 
rather to have a better reputation than we deserve than a worse. 
Yet manifestly this latter is far the most profitable. For in this 



FLOTSAM AN"D JETSAM. Ill 

case those who know ns are surprised at every turn to find us 
better than we have been painted, and thence suppose that we 
must be even better than we are ; while in the other case they 
discover the exaggeration, and in mere indignation and resent- 
ment at the deception that they have undergone, strip us even 
of the good qualities we do possess. Now this also is to be re- 
membered, that nobody has the reputation he really deserves, 
for to have that he would require to be really known, which 
none is, even to himself. Since, therefore, we must all be re- 
puted either better or worse than we really are, it were wise to 
pray that we may be reputed worse rather ^than better. From 
the one there is redemption with those who know us, who, af- 
ter all, are the only ones who for us exist ; from the latter there 
is no escape, but only a fearful looking for a justice and judg- 
ment to come. 

****** 
Opinions, as they arc called, seem to me to be just now the 
curse of the world. They are the Brummagem imitation of 
convictions, arrived at, or rather adopted, hap-hazard, mostly 
upon the merest hearsay, without knowledge and without re- 
flection. Anybody may have an opinion upon anything, and 
everybody has one upon everything. It is so easy. You have 
only to skim a leading article, or to catch a phrase of conversa- 
tion, and the thing is done. Upon the Regent's Park explosion, 
upon Count Arnim, upon the Carlists, the Pope, the prospects 
of a war in Europe, or what not, opinions are current through- 
out Europe ; and they have all been adopted in this way. Very 
different is the method by which a conviction, even the meanest 
and smallest of them, is reached. Hard labor to acquire infor- 
mation, much reflection, and that eternal struggle required to 
cull the one just, necessary, and inevitable conclusion are here 
indispensable ; and there are very few wlio will give so much 
trouble to anything unless it be to their own immediate money 
matters. Now how the man of convictions must despise and 
look down upon the man of opinions ! He has built himself 
painfully upon his own foundation ; he knows that he is ri^ht, 



112 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

while the rest only know that they have rashly presumed to say 
that somebody else is right. But what is so irritating and 
wearing is, that the man of convictions is always called to be 
tried before the bar of the men of opinions ; which is as if the 
light should be judged by the darkness, or the seeing given 
over to the guidance of the blind. To have an opinion is to 
have a false imitation of a conviction ; but the worst falsehood 
of all is to present the opinion as though it were a conviction. 
Yet how few are ashamed to do this ! 



To me poetry — and by poetry I mean, of course, neither 
verse nor rhyme, which have indeed been terribly prostituted 
to base uses — is at once the most delightful and the most pain- 
ful reading. To leave this lesser material earth and to launch 
forth borne upon the wings of the poet into the free, universal, 
unfettered ideal space is grateful beyond all things, especially- 
grateful to those of us who have been soiled and bruised in the 
rough contact with material things. But I always feel equal 
sympathy and pity for the poet. I see him, having seized, 
perhaps created, an idea, grappling and wrestling with it, striv- 
ing to hold it and to lay it down, placing it before all men, so 
that he shall say, " There, that is the whole of this my idea" 
— and always failing. He piles word upon word, illustration 
upon illustration, figure upon figure, and alv/ays falls short of 
the full expression of what is within him. Language fails, the 
sympathies of men fail, figures are poor and wretched, and the 
idea remains forever unrevealed save to those who can, with 
wings of their own, fly side by side with the poet, and reach 
with him at that he seeks to grasp. Yet none can grasp his idea 
as he grasps it ; and in the end the poet remains alone with 
that spark of divine fire which he has snatched from heaven, 
which he has sought to share with others, and which always at 
last falls back upon himself and inflames him, till at last it may 
even haply consume him. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 113 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

At Sea, 7th November. 
Sam is very like a dng-iip Northman. lie has hair Hkc 
bristles, a beard like a yellow fiirze-bash, and hands like legs 
of mutton. He is a great lump of a man built on the Dutch 
model, with a good low floor, and he slouches about in a dog- 
ged, good-tempered way, which nothing could ever provoke 
into smartness, lie wears a beautiful pair of ear-rings, and 
has been an oyster-dredger all his life. I was first introduced 
to him at Trouville, and now I have shipped him in place of 
Tom, who has fallen sick and gone home. We took the first 
watch to-night together, and have naturally soon made an ac- 
quaintance. I find Sam a man of much information, and excel- 
lently well-educated for his business, which is no small thing in 
these days of mere literary acquirements. His great ambition 
is to leave sailoring and get a place in some London warehouse. 
" Oysters is so scarce, they are, you can't make a living out of 
'em." In his boat, which was just about the size of the Billy 
Baby, eighteen tons register, they were four men working on 
shares ; one share for each, and a share and a half for the 
owner of the boat and gear — " an independent gentleman, he 
is, that keeps a fish-shop in Billingsgate market." But then 
there are times when you can't go out for a month together, 
and he and his mates hadn't cleared above a pound a week 
each for a long time past. Yes, it would be a great thing if 
they could be allowed to sell their oysters in French ports. 
They will generally let you sell enough to get your food, but not 
always. He minds once at St. Vaast they wouldn't let them 
even do that, nor even let them lay down the oysters to keep 
them alive, so that they had to heave them overboard and lost 
them. 

It is very improving to talk to Sam, and at the same time 
very disheartening. I believe I have as much natural ability as 
Sam, and as many natural advantages in every way ; and it 



114 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

seems very hard that my godfathers and godmothers should 
have precisely so educated me as to make a failure of me, while 
his hav^e made of him a success. For all the real necessary 
purposes of life Sam is a thousand times my master, and it is 
only by virtue of a system of unreal and unnecessary conven- 
tions that I happen to be his. Tf we two found ourselves on a 
desert island, I should necessarily be his slave, and necessarily 
remain so, unless he would, like a fool, let me talk to him and 
protocol! ze him out of his natural superiority. For he can act- 
ually do much, while I at most can only think and say little. 
The work that he can do is essential in all times and places ; 
that which I do is optional in all, and only even possible in a 
few. And what is worse for me is that he has really learned 
to do his work, while I am very far indeed from having 
learned to do mine. F>ery time he hauls his dredge he has 
done something to enrich his kind, while I who have fished all 
night am always obliged to confess at last that I have taken 
nothing. 

* 4s * * * * 

Off Cape Antifer, 8th November. 
I came out of Shoreham yesterday bound for Dieppe, and 
hoped to make d'Ailly light about midnight. But the wmd 
fell to a calm, and we were soon simply driving about at the 
mercy of these spring-tides. At four o'clock this morning, 
having been on deck all night so far and made nothing, I 
turned in for a nap, and it appears that a thick fog came on 
immediately after. Anyhow at half-past five I became aware 
of a far-off voice calling me, from thousands of miles away as 
it seems in sleep, and announcing " the land ;" whereupon turn- 
ing out at once I found that the ship had been put about, and 
that we were so near the shore that, though it could not be 
seen, I could distinctly hear the waves breaking on it. In an- 
other few minutes I made out through the dense fog a light 
which, from its size and from the way in which I knew we 
must have drifted with the ebb, I reckoned could be no other 
than Fecamp, and no farther than a couple of miles off at 



FLOTSAM AN-D JETSAM. 115 

most. We were therefore half-way between Dieppe and Havre, 
and as the flood-tide was now well-nigli half done, and what 
little wind there was was easterly, I put the helm up and 
squared away for Havre. It is now midday, the fog has light- 
ened, but the wind is so poor that it is a mere toss-up whether 
we get in. I remember a friend of mine who lost his ship 
through leaving the deck for a sleep in the Channel, and he 
was very much blamed for it, by none more than by me. Pos- 
sibly I, too, ought to have known better. But it is very hard 
to keep awake all night in a calm, easy as it is in a gale — which 
things are an allegory if ever there was one. 

****** 

Havre, 9th November. 
Certainly one of the most amusing things in life is to get up 
at seven o'clock, after a whole night in, and go marketing with 
Bill. I think the charm of it lies in this, that one comes into 
direct contact at first-hand with the provisions and their pro- 
ducers. It is impossible to take any interest in a sole that has 
passed through a dozen dirty tradesmen's hands, and has finally 
found its way with a score of other soles to the slab of a fish- 
monger who has nothing in common with it. But it is very 
different if you can buy that sole of the fisherman who caught 
it. You seem to be brought nearer to the sole's own existence, 
and can understand his having left a wife and family to regret 
his loss. There is no satisfaction in buying the freshest of but- 
ter from a lank-haired, snub-nosed cheesemonger, or the finest 
of fruit from a Covent Garden Jew ; there is much in dealing 
with the very dairy-maid who has churned the butter, and can 
assure you that it was made yesterday ; much in getting with 
your pear the testimony to its worth of the peasant wlio has 
known it ever since it was a blossom. TJien alone do you feel 
that you are face to face with a real natural product of the 
earth, whereas when you deal with the middle-man, or third or 
fourth hand, you can never divest yourself of the idea that 
what you are buying is not a natural product at all, but the re- 
sult of a cunning manufacture. 



116 FLOTSAM AI^D JETSAM, 

Here in the market, filled from daylight with peasants bring- 
ing in their produce, one breathes the very air of dairies, or- 
chards and gardens. Pleasant, indeed, is it to walk through 
the stalls, rich and glorious with all the kindly fruits of the 
earth, spread out in their brilliant coloring as though to give 
an earnest that the world is grateful and lovable if we only 
knew it and would see it. And then I always feel so much 
elevated in my own estimation by the marketing itself. The 
science may, perhaps, be a difficult one ; but I find it easy 
enough. " Thirty-six sous a dozen for new-laid eggs ! Surely 
that is very dear." — " Mais non, monsieur." — " Very well, 
give them to me. Pears three sous each !" (exactly the same 
as I bought a week ago in Covent Garden for a shilling), " and 
tomatoes one sou ! Why it is ruinous ; but give me them all 
the same, and some potatoes and salad, and a pound of that 
butter. Now, Bill, will you not put the butter and eggs in 
the same basket as the coke ? anybody would think you had 
never heard the fable of the iron pot and the china pot." 
Whereat Bill smiles as though I had made a good joke, and 
takes a furtive bite at the green apple which he had dispend- 
iously bought as a pleasant thing to eat the first thing in the 
morning. The amount of apples that boy survives is marvel- 
lous. 

9i( % 4: % H< 4: 

It is fearful to think how a woman or a work takes hold of a 
man if he will but look at them. Considered in general they 
are the greatest bores, the most uneducated nuisances. To 
make a fool of oneself for a woman, to give oneself up to a 
work — be it the fairest woman that ever lived, or the greatest 
work ever conceived — pah ! what nonsense ! Yet if you look 
but out of the corner of your eye, but once, the merest glance, 
at that one particular woman ; if you but throw the shuttle once 
through that warp and begin to see the pattern growing ; if 
you only touch lightly that work ; if once you set your hand 
to that plough — there is no help for you — you must go on. 
And the further you go the more you are identified with the 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 117 

woman or the work ; until at last you are no longer at all your- 
self but her or it. I fear to look at any woman, or to begin 
any work. If one could but be as the lilies that grow and take 
no thought ! But once you enter the magic portals you leave 
all hope behind. A pair of eyes, or a blue-book, are equally 
fatal to your repose. Look for a moment, read for a page, 
and you are lost, and given over henceforth to all the warring 
forces that each man has within him. It is terrible to think 
of it. But then who shall tell the fierce delight, the pangs of 
painful pleasure, the stinging joys that he feels who has given 
himself over to the woman or the work that has taken him cap- 
tive ? Ah ! those moments when one grapples with the mem- 
ory of her, with the pith of it ! when one rises exultingly feel- 
ing that one has taken a hold, and walks up and down in soli- 
tude, knowing that one has evolved out of one's nothingness 
a feeling or an idea. I do not know which is the more deli- 
cious — to be certified that one has brought into existence a new 
love, or to certify to oneself, while yet no other knows it, that 
one has met a live idea. Yet so great is the thraldom of each, 
that one is sometimes tempted to think it were better to vege- 
tate like a cabbage than to live like a man, 

****** 
The rage for business will one day be recognized as one of the 
most dangerous forms of modern folly. A big State governed 
by a big Government means oppression at home and aggression 
abroad ; a big city means immense vice and immense misery, 
incapable from their very extent of being dealt with ; a big 
corporation means enormous opportunities for jobbery ; a big 
manufacture means scant work ; even a big house means 
great waste and robbery, and great lack of service. Yet 
we are all for bigness, as though it were in itself a good. 
We applaud the " unification" of Gkvi'many, which is ef- 
fected by killing many small states to make one big one ; we 
plume ourselves over the exaggeration of London ; we take the 
foreigner to see the bloated workshops of Birmingham and 
Manchester, and show him the Grosvenor Place mansions as 



118 FLOTSAM AN"D JETSAM. 

the highest efforts of man in the way of habitations ; while 
we are even now engaged in the endeavor to substitute a big 
London vestry for the small ones that have hitherto existed. 
All this is a kind of lunacy. There may be a necessity for or- 
ganization, and for taking away from each a part of his individ- 
uality to organize the whole ; but if so, it is a necessity to be 
deplored, not at all to be praised. And it is monstrous when, 
as is now the case in the centres of " civilization," it reaches 
the point of organizing a man out of his own existence. For 
a man's life is what he does, in it, and the essential point of the 
big system is that by it he is taken in and done for down to 
his smallest details. On the original plan of little communities, 
he drew his own water from the spring that he knew, grew and 
knew his own produce, fattened his own pig, brewed his own 
beer, made his own bread, cleaned his own doorstep, defended 
himself against attack, and in general lived among and through 
his own works, thought his own thoughts, and made of himself 
a separate man from all others. On the big plan he is watered 
and market-gardened, butchered, brewed, baked, drained, and 
policed all under one with thousands ; lives among and through 
the works of others ; is thought for by able editors ; and is 
merely one unit in many columns of figures. The complaint I 
make against all this brigading into bigness is that it so belittles 
the man that it brings him at last to the condition of a mere 
pawn, having no individuality and no existence, except as an 
atom in a mass of other men to be organized, enregimented, and 
dealt with by pure wholesale. The foundation of it all is the 
notion that men are not worth regarding, or dealing with, un- 
less you can get a large number. Yet the larger the body of 
men the less is each man in it, and we seem likely to go on in- 
creasing the brigades until we shall have brought down the in- 
dividual to the point of nothingness. 



FLOTSAM AlTD JETSAM. 119 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Havre, l7th November. 
It is a terrible reflection that no one of us completely under- 
stands what another says to him. Perhaps I generalize hastily, 
but so far as I, at any rate, am concerned I find that, in read- 
ing with any exactitude any author who really says anything, I 
am continually brought up all standing by the conviction that I 
have not seized through the words he employs the idea that 
was in his mind. Then ensues a painful struggle. I read 
again and again the passage, or it may be the one or two words 
which I have failed to interpret ; I wrestle with their sense ; 
and often at last I am compelled to admit that I really don't 
get any notion of the idea that they clothe ; and even if I do 
think I grasp it, it is merely as a possible notion which may or 
may not be the true one. That may be put down to my dul- 
ness, but then most of us are dull ; were it otherwise we should 
have little need of writers to instruct us ; and the hardship of 
it is this — that those who are most dull, and who therefore 
have the greatest need of the instruction, are precisely those 
who have the least chance of obtaining it. In truth it cannot 
be otherwise ; for each one of us, if we only knew it, gives his 
own special idea— the result of his thinking and living, or of 
the want of them — to each word he uses or meets ; so that we 
are in general all talking a different language each to each. 
Were it otherwise, universal wisdom would ensue in a few gen- 
erations. As we are told, for men who " have all one lan- 
guage," *' nothing will be restrained from them which they 
have imagined to do ;" but once our language confounded, we 
are and must be " scattered abroad upon the face of all the 
earth," incapable of giving or of receiving^support ; each fight- 
ing for his own hand and breaking his brother's head solely 
because he does not understand what he says. If only once we 
could get to understand each other we should be as the gods. 
But there is no danger of that ever occurring. 



120 FLOTSAM AXD JETSAM. 

ISth November. 

Wlien one has few friends it is cruelly hard to lose one of 
them, and I fear I have lost one of my very best. A bitter 
experience had taught me the necessity of exercising a little 
gentle constraint upon the female sex wherever there are attrac- 
tions of any kind available beyond the dull everyday life ; and 
I had consequently carefully tied up the Princess of Sheba from 
the time we came into this port. Four days ago, however, she 
slipped her collar and ran ashore, and from that time to this I 
have not been able to obtain the slightest trace of her. I have 
been to the police, I have offered rewards, I have employed 
men to search, I have set the whole town of Havre upside 
down, I have had young ladies of every character and complex- 
ion brought to me — white, black, brindled, large, small, 
straight, and curly — but Sheba I have been utterly unable to 
find, and I begin to fear that she is lost to me forever, lured 
away probably by some unscrupulous gandin without respect 
for family ties, and perhaps taken clean off to Paris, where she 
will live in splendid vice, and forget, or maybe only remember 
to despise, her home and her friends. 

It really is very hard to experience a misfortune like this 
when one knows that one has done nothing to deserve it. Now 
she is lost to me, I prize her far more than I had ever sup- 
posed possible. I remember her little ways and even her little 
faults with tenderness and regret — the clever stealthiness with 
which she would creep down into the cabin in bad weather, 
and the air of candid surprise she would take when I found her 
asleep in her wet coat on my best cushions. I recall that par- 
ticular expression she knew how to put into her back at break- 
fast and dinner-time, the bashful yet decided protest she made 
when offered biscuit instead of meat, the wild races round the 
deck with which she would celebrate my arrival, the intrepid 
barkmg with which she would sometimes defend me from sleep 
and the ship from an imaginary enemy the night through. I 
think of her wistful brown eyes, of the way she would nestle 
up against my legs when I took a trick at the helm, and of the 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 121 

thousand little acts by wliicli she revealed her eharacter and 
almost persuaded me that we were five and not four souls on 
board. I think of all this and I am aware that I have really 
experienced a great misfortune not to be repaired. Poor Sheba ! 
you will hardly find one who feels for you my affection. At 
least, I pray you may be happy. 

4c « 4( « 4< :ic 

Diderot has remarked that whoever objects to the established 
order of things complains in effect of his own existence ; since 
he, such as he is, is but the product precisely of that particular 
order of things. In the same way a German has declared that 
*' Man is what he eats." Both which propositions are true and 
false ; for just as any given man is the product of the estab- 
lished order of things j!;^?/s his notion of them, so also a man is 
what he eats plus what he does — which greatly changes the 
matter. Indeed, we may go a step farther, and say that a man 
only exists in proportion as he contributes something from him- 
self to the established order of things, and is something more 
than what he eats. Adam only began to fulfil his destiny when 
he gave names to all cattle, and to the fowls of the air, and to 
every beast of the field ; that is to say, when he invested the 
established order of things with notions of his own. 

•|C 5jC 5|* JfC 5fC Tt 

There are many men who affect to despise the opinion of 
their fellows, but I have never yet found one who really did 
despise it. And this is natural ; for, say what we will, we all 
know (as, indeed, the most important and interesting things 
we know are precisely those we never do say) that it is mainly 
this opinion that makes us what we are. The great, the little, 
the virtuous, the vicious, the strong, the weak, are what they 
are by no other title than the consent of *their neighbor, and 
their own belief founded on that consent. If all those mem- 
bers of mankind of whom I have any knowledge agree in de- 
claring me to be great and virtuous, I have no choice but to take 
the appearances of greatness and virtue, even if I be the mean- 



122 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

est and most vicious of men ; and by habit this grows upon me 
until at last I am persuaded myself of my greatness and virtue. 
So, equally, if you tell me I am a scoundrel — why, then, I am 
a scoundrel, though I should be virtue in person. And if, now, 
one or two of you discover and say that I am nothing of the 
kind, that is immaterial, and will remain of no effect at all 
until you have converted some section of mankind to consent 
generally to your discovery — and even then it is only of effect 
in that section. For all other sections I remain a scoundrel ; 
when among them I must perforce confess myself a scoundrel, 
and as such alone can I act. We most of us know a great man 
or two who is really but a miserable poor creature ; yet he is 
not therefore dishonest, for he has been so often told that he is 
great that he thoroughly believes it, and no one w^ould be more 
surprised than he if he were suddenly brought face to face with 
the demonstration that he is an impostor. 

****** 
The whole art of getting everything consists in producing 
the belief that you will accept nothing. No offer is ever hon- 
estly made in this life that does not come arm in arm with the 
fear of refusal. For those who make an offer make it with the 
object of receiving, not of conferring, a favor. If once you 
let them know that the reverse is the case, you are lost for that 
time. If once it is suspected that you really want anything, 
that is precisely the thing that you will never get. I know a 
man who has found means to make the woman he loves believe 
that he thinks her a bore. But he is very clever, and he will 
have his reward. 



Havre, 19th November. 
For the whole of the last week there have been lying here 
some five-and-tweuty English fishing-boats, forced to run in for 
shelter, and unable to face the constant gales that have been 
blowing. It is a piteous sight to see these poor fellows doing 
down to the jetty every morning to " have a look at the 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 123 

weatlier," and coming back, forced to decide that it is still 
impossible to go to sea. Tliey slouch about the town in their 
long boots, looking in at the shop-windows in a melancholy 
way, for they know that want of work for them means want of 
food. One little boat left Shoreham eight days ago with only 
a sovereign on board for the whole crew, and they have only 
food for two days more, and no money to buy more when that 
is gone. But they are kind and helpful, these rough men, and 
of sturdy independence, too. For a friend of mine offered to 
give them some money to help them out of their difficulty ; 
but they refused it, saying that they thought they could get 
along till the weather moderated, " and then you see, sir, we 
borrow off each other.'' A touching revelation, it seems to 
me, this of men who do not need to ask who is their neigh- 
bor. 

* * * * * * 

Havre, 20th November. 
The French have certainly the most ingenious contrivances 
for wasting time of any people extant. I have had to pay two 
and fourpence halfpenny for port and sanitary dues, and it has 
taken Ned and me all day to do it between us. First I went 
to the Custom House, where I was blandly requested to leave 
my register and to go to the Bureau Sanitaire. The Bureau 
Sanitaire I found tenanted by two functionaries playing 
draughts, who politely interrupted their game to ask me my 
names, Christian names, age, place of birth, what ray cargo 
was, and so forth ; all which they inscribed on a document 
which they directed me to take back to the Custom House to 
be vise. Having done this, I was instructed to go on to the 
Mairie, at least a mile distant. At the Mairie it took me a good 
half-hour to find the proper room, having discovered which I 
had to wait till two questions relating to t4ie armee territoriale, 
and one relating to a 2)ermission de mariage, were disposed of 
before my payment of one and fivepence halfpenny could be 
received. Armed now with the solemn receipt of the French 
Republic for that sum, I returned to the Custom House for the 



124 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

third time, and after another hunt up and down wrong staircases 
and through wrong rooms, had the satisfaction of paying eleven- 
pence for port dues. Returning now to the first office, I was 
at last allowed to take again my papers, and therewith the per- 
mission to leave the port of Havre when I liked. To achieve 
this result I have had to walk, including staircases, a good four 
miles, and to hold no less than seven interviews. If, now, I 
had had to pay a louis, a lifetime would not, at the same rate, 
have sufficed for it. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

London, 8th December. 
There is a kind of man who lives by making distinctions. 
He has no ideas of his own, but he lies in wait for the ideas of 
other men in order to dilute them with some trivial condition 
of circumstance. " Yes— but," is his ensign, and with that 
he commonly begins what he, and many besides, hold to be 
contributions to the stock of thought on any given subject. 
He is a man of half-tones and minor thirds, a whitewasher of 
cathedrals, an impertinent babbler to the gods, not compre- 
hending thunder. If to such an one you say, " The sun 
shines," he will straightway challenge you with the shade of a 
dunghill ; if you tell him of noble aspirations, he will tell you 
of bakers' bills ; if you pipe love, he dances lust ; if you sing 
spirit, he rejoices flesh ; if you question of the height, he an- 
swers from the depth. He is a critic of perspective and draw- 
ing, there where both have been sacrificed to conception. And 
the worst of him is that he has not the grace to be silent. He 
it is who has reduced God to dogma, and the Law to writing. 
He made the golden calf because he could see only with his 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 125 

eyes. And he still exists to weary the very soul out of the im- 
patient. How long, how long ? 

•it * * * * * 

The distinguishing characteristic of the modern Englishman 
is his extreme dislike to telling or hearing the truth, whenever 
the truth is of any importance. He will tell or listen to it 
*' confidentially " and in secret ; indeed, then it is the only 
thing he really cares to hear or to tell ; but there is no trouble 
he will not take and no trick he will not play to avoid meeting 
or stating it to the dreaded third person, however proper and 
important it may be that the third person should know it. 
We all know about this wife and that minister ; but he who 
should tell the husband or the country what it so imports them 
above all to know, would be regarded as a treacherous danger- 
ous person. And what is so irritating is that we yet profess to 
be greater lovers of truth than any other people on the face of 
the earth. How much better would it be if we were frankly 
to admit ourselves to be the greatest professors of lies ! 

When I hear people talk of different styles and periods of 
art, of Cinque-cento, Renaissance, of the Barocco, the Greek, 
and the Italian, I am impatient. For it appears to me that the 
whole and the only interest lies in men, and the only thing- 
worth considering is the life and character of the human beings 
who produced these different styles as shown in tbeir works. 
To know them is the essential, and their fruits are only inter- 
esting because it is by their fruits that we do know them. Did 
they lead a spiritual or a merely material life ? Did they work 
toward a high ideal, forgetting and disregarding all else, or 
did they falsely betray — they the chosen exponents of it — all 
that is high and noble in the composition*of our nature ? That 
is the point, and when once that is appreciated it disposes for- 
ever of any attempt to reproduce or to imitate any given style 
of art. For in order to produce the same fruits you must have 
the same men. You cannot build a Gothic cathedral by simply 



126 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

copying Gothic works ; what is indispensable is to have the 
Gothic reverence and sense of awful mystery, the Gothic fidelity 
and laboriousness, and the Gothic religion and superstition. 
Neither can you do work like Palladio's nor like Michael An- 
gelo's without living their life. You cannot be venal or even 
commercial in your ordinary life, and yet be pure and spiritual 
in your work. And since all artists are now venal and com- 
mercial it is absurd to expect from them work of any other 
kind, and doubly absurd to expect it in the shape of an imita- 
tion of the work of men who were not as they are. 



Nobody seems now to see that the ideal, which (when we are 
true to ourselves) we are all working up to, must be taken not 
from among, but from above and outside of mankind. When 
the soldier-spirit burns within a man, he thinks it sufficient to be 
a Napoleon ; if he is in philanthropic mood, he conceives that 
he may do as much as Howard ; if a statesman, he may reach 
as high as Sully or Pitt ; if an artist, as far as Michael Angelo; 
if a poet, he would emulate Dante or Shakespeare. Yet these 
men are themselves the proof that this is not enough. They 
reached at something higher than themselves ; they knew of 
and sought better things than ever they did — for no man atr 
tains to his ideal. And to reach no higher than them, is to be 
content to fall below them. To make what has been done the 
limit of what may be done, is to accept a continued and in- 
creasing deterioration. To do well man must aim at the Best, 
and the Best has never yet been done in aught. Is not this 
also an argument, if any were needed, to prove the necessity 
for that mysterious presentment of the Best which we call God ? 
Is not this also a sufficient reason why that Best should always 
be and remain mysterious and incapable of being touched, 
handled, and reasoned upon ? 



PLOTS A xM AND JETSAM. l'Z7 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

London, loth December. 
An irritating, terrible, despairing feature of life is tlie eter- 
nal round in which the individual and the mass give each other 
the lie as to the very fundamental nature of things. *' I am 
everything," says the individual ; " there are grouped around 
me men, laws, conditions, incidents, past, present, and future, 
but they are all subordinate to me, who am in reality the one 
only important phenomenon that the Universe has produced." 
'' You lie !" replies every creature and thing in a brutal 
chorus ; " you are nothing, you do not exist. You a centre ! 
You are not even in any way necessary, much less indispensa- 
ble, and if you were not, none would know your place. When 
you fall overboard, as you must some day, the waters will close 
over you, and the ship will go on as before, without being 
aware that you who think yourself the captain have disappeared. 
"What you are, that we have made you, and when you are no 
longer, we can as readily make another if we should want such 
a one. Prophet, Priest, King, nay, the very Divinity in per- 
son though you claim to be, we reck not of you, and can match 
you with one as good for our purpose whenever you may disap- 
pear. " And the worst of it is that this is all true, and that it 
is nevertheless impossible for any one of us to believe it. 
* * * * -ft * 

This " vile body " of ours is indeed vile. It is the inevita- 
ble companion and traitor to all we do. There never was such 
an irritating machine as this, through which and by which alone 
we are condemned to work. It is like a lady's watch — always 
out of repair ; but far worse than a lady'* watch, because no- 
body has the secret of repairing it. As these machines go, I 
believe mme to be a pretty good one. But at the best it is 
always coming in at critical moments with demands for rest 
and fuel, and interrupting thereby, or even quite upsetting, all 



128 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

the work one wishes to do with it. I can understand men 
breaking it out of sheer impatience. For if you force it, it will 
break you. Sully tells us how Henry IV. and his friends, 
after many days' fighting in the streets, were fain to lean up 
against the houses and thus rest, turn and turn about ; and I 
remember a Communard leader who told me that in Paris, 
during the last days of the fight, he was so utterly overcome by 
the want of sleep, that he cared not what might happen, and 
would even have regarded it as a happy deliverance to be set 
up against a wall and despatched. It is bad enough to have 
a soul, but really, when dispassionately regarded, it is much 
worse to have a body. 

****** 
Nothing seems to me to prove more lamentably tbe extinc- 
tion of the race of real men, and the contemptuous indifference 
with which they are regarded, than the oft- repeated question, 
" Who is he ?" and the nature of the answer always expected 
to be made and always, in fact, made to it. Properly and 
naturally the only rational answer would be, that he is a man 
of such and such a kind and degree of intellect and moral 
quality, that he has done thus and thus and said this and this, 
and that his individuality and place in the world are so marked 
out. There is no relevant or important thing to be said out of 
this range. Yet nobody dreams of expecting or of giving such 
an answer to the question. The reply always avoids the man 
himself, and fastens itself exclusively on his purely accidental 
and incidental surroundings. He is the son of this man, who 
lives in that county, and has an estate near to that of the other 
man ; his sister married A B ; his mother was so much talked 
of with C D that people confuse his genealogy ; and he is very 
well or very ill off, as the case may be. This is, in effect, an 
admission that the man himself is of no importance whatever 
in the eyes of those who are professedly speaking of him ; or 
rather it is a general confession that there is no such creature 
as a man left remaining among us, so far as the world knows or 
cares to know. That there are, nevertheless^ real men in ex- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 129 

istence — that is to say, men doing real work — is probable ; but 
then they are mainly, and often merely, themselves ; where- 
fore, there is no answer possible to the question who they are ; 
wherefore they are nobody — which is precisely what we delight 

to prove. 

****** 

The Billy Baby is at last laid up for the winter, dismantled 
of all her gear, with her mast painted, two coats of varnish on 
her deck, and Ned in charge till I can so far emancipate myself 
as to return to her — to my real home, where alone I feel as 
though I belonged more or less to myself. Ned writes me the 
most delicious letters, in which he mixes up the weather, the 
stores, the casualties at Shoreham, the desire he has to spend 
his first Christmas since fifteen years at home, and the breaking 
of two bottles of wine, in the most approved literary manner. 
Bill has returned to his mamma, and is probably now on his 
way to the Dogger Bank for a course of fishing. Tom has 
also gone on the same business, and without coming to see me 
in London, w^hich he was afraid to do for fear of being run 
over in the streets. This delights me as being another proof 
that we only really fear that with which we are not acquainted. 
It would seem as absurd to him to be afraid in a gale at sea, as 
it does to many to be afraid in a press of traffic in the Strand — 
yet this latter ordeal proved too much for Tom. It is very nec- 
essary and proper that nobody should ever have returned from 
Death to give an account of it — for there are those who might 

laugh. 

****** 

I remember I once had a terrible interview which I certainly 
shall never forget ; yet when I now recall it, I am aware that 
into my share of it there entered no small amount of conscious 
acting, and that, indeed, I should have a difiScult task were I 
to attempt to say where the real feeling ended and the acting 
began. Not that I overacted what I really felt — far from it ; 
but that I remember that I kept all the time a conscient watch 
over myself rather with the intention of underacting it. In 



130 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

sliort, I know now that half my appearance and words were an 
imposture. And this, I take it, is always true whenever a man 
is deeply moved ; were it otherwise he would go mad then and 
there. From this he is only, indeed, saved by that very intel- 
lectual and artistic criticism which he is making upon himself, 
and endeavoring to carry into force in the tone of his voice, 
the look of his eye, and down to the very trick and motion of 
foot and hand, whenever he is really moved in the presence of 
another. A man is never all real when he is before a second 
man, still less when he is before a woman. This comes not 
always or even often of dishonesty of purpose, but rather of 
the utter inadequacy of all language and all gesture to convey 
anything like a true impression of that confused storm which 
rages in him when the springs of the inner being are wrung, 
and the whole complex machinery is thrown into its original 
chaos. A man learns not to be himself all his life long ; he 
has painfully and by long effort clad himself in the garments 
prescribed for his particular condition ; how then shall he be 
not ashamed when he suddenly finds himself naked ? 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

If anybody ever thought of it at all, it would be painful 
and humiliating indeed to think how mean and petty is our 
daily life, and how completely occupied with microscopic 
trifling. Those of us, indeed, who affect to be superior, do 
occasionally put on, and flaunt about for a brief hour in, some 
uniform of belief or of principle — to lay it off again when the 
hour's masking is over. But our daily thought and converse 
are of things of rank detail. The Parson applies himself to 
candlestick and vestment, the Prince to court ceremony and 
precedence, the Statesman to a vote, the Woman to the fash- 
ions ; and, meantime, the law of God, the j^lace of the Sover- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 131 

eign, the fate of the empire, and the art of dress are left unre- 
garded and untouched. We are always working in our little 
bits of colored glass, without ever thinking of verifying the 
design of the mosaic. Thus have we become incapable of large 
principles or of sustained action. And withal we fancy that 
we have handed over all principles to the charge of men in- 
vented and paid for that purpose. As though they, who are 
our creatures, could be any different from us. 

****** 

There is an old lying platitude which declares that the idea, 
and the practical are two, and that of them the practical is the 
more excellent. Never was such a falsehood presented to the 
foolhardiness and indolence of mankind. Ideal and practical 
are one, and the practical only exists because and in so far as it 
is a realization of the ideal. What men would be, that, so 
far as in them lies, they are ; and conversely what they are, 
that they to a fuller scope would be. If now they are found 
striving above all to be loved and honored of their fellows, and 
yet to take no heed of those things which alone merit love 
and honor, then their ideal is that of supreme deception, the 
ideal of the gambler who would win even with cogged dice 
rather than not win at all. These are your practical men. 
Yet it were, perhaps, possible to conceive of another kind of 
man who should stand aside and, looking at the game, 
should reflect that he, having also those dice put into 
his hand, had thrown them down and had rejoiced rather to 
go forth a loser practically, but ideally so much the more a 
gainer. For, make up the accounts, and it will appear at last 
that of two who take each a step toward their point, he will 
remain uppermost whose point is above — though lie have made 
infinitely less progress than he whose point is below. 
****** 

It is a fearful thing to be out of gear with the world, and he 
must be strongly persuaded he is right who can endure this. 
But how much more fearful for any to be in gear with it, and 



132 FLOTSAM Al^D JETSAM. 

yet not quite sure that he is right ! In the one case there is 
only the doubt whether he is a martyr — in the other there is the 
doubt whether he is not a swindler. 

* * * * * * 

The meanness of this our generation is manifest in nothing 
more than in the craving shown to be many together to indulge 
in vice or corruption. It is bad enough that no man should be 
any longer capable of virtue without companions ; but it is 
worse that none should be capable of vice without abettors ; for 
this involves the admission that the vice is known for what it 
is ; that it would not be indulged unless there were too many 
accomplices concerned to be punished. A man hesitates to be 
a liar, a traitor, a thief, or a spoiler purely on his own account, 
and taking all his own risks ; but he will readily lie as the 
editor of a newspaper, betray his country in complicity with a 
party, steal money as the financier of a company, or remove 
his neighbor's landmark in the ranks of an army. Our virtues 
are miserable enough, but there is something incredibly mean 
and cowardly about our vices. Just as we fancy that if we get 
a few hundred fools together, the result will be a body of wise 
men, so we seem to think that when we follow a multitude to 
do evil, the evil thereby becomes good. This is the theory of 
the divine wisdom of majorities, in which all now believe, and 
by which we are governed. 

****** 

There is a very old but very foolish craze still in existence, 
that men are all born to special uses ; whereas it would be 
much more true to say that they are mostly educated to special 
misuses. The notion is popular because it is pleasant, and en- 
ables men to make the pretence of an excuse for their own idle- 
ness by representing it as an infliction of Providence. They 
have not the talent necessary to do this, they lack the special 
gifts required to do that, they will tell you, and give you to 
understand that they are hardly used in that respect. One 
especial instance of this is to be found in the popular notion of 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 133 

public speaking and writing, which are freely alleged, and by- 
many believed to be, distinct faculties given or withheld from 
on high ; and there are found orators and authors who support 
a belief which so magnifies their office. The simple truth, 
nevertheless, is that there is no mystery whatever in the asser- 
tion of conclusions, either vocally or on paper : the whole 
mystery lies in attaining to conclusions, which is by no means 
a gift reserved to a few, but the result of labor, open to all who 
will pay that price for it. The whole is done when the price 
is paid ; neither is there anything else at all worthy of being 
regarded. If you would see the real prophet, poet, statesman, 
artist, or orator — that is to say, one who in any of these char- 
acters has reached any conclusion — you will find him in the 
solitary man struggling and wrestling with his work, failing, 
falling, letting the oar fall from his grasp and coming to it 
again painfully, perhaps reluctantly, and always with distrust 
of his strength, the while there is none by to cheer and encour- 
age him, no applause, no result even apparent, nor any present 
hope of a result. What he then can do in the silence and 
darkness, that he is ; and he is but a pale reflex and imitation 
of that when he stands forth only to show his work. Yet this, 
the least part and the merest incident of his business, is alone 
regarded and treated as though it were the whole. They turn 
with disgust from him while he is running the race ; and when 
he wins the prize they go about exclaiming that it is a gift. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

. Of all the feelings a man can experience,* I should think the 
bitterest, the most humiliating, and the nearest of any to des- 
peration, is that which takes him by the throat with soft grip- 
ping invisible yet resistless fingers, when he has had what is 
called a success in that particular department of life to which 



134 FLOTSAM AXD JETSAM. 

lie has for the moment addressed himself. The wealth he has 
labored for is at last in his grasp, and all the pleasures and the 
powers it can command rise up to salute him ; the woman he 
has loved at last owns the spell, and falls into his arms ; the 
heaven-born principle he has discovered and revealed is at 
last accepted, and the universal crowd call him master ; the 
heathen are converted at last, and own him to be the true 
prophet : he has fought the fight and conquered. And then, 
even while the crown is being placed upon his head, then it is 
that he must fatally look in upon himself and know that he is 
a miserable impostor. Then in bitterness of soul he first real- 
izes that the wealth is not truly his ; that he is not indeed the 
man whom that woman takes him to be and loves ; that the 
principle he has preached is not heaven-born or of his discov- 
ery ; that he is no revealer, no prophet, nothing of all he is 
taken for, and no true possessor of the rewards attributed to 
him. If a successful man could be found to speak the truth 
at such a moment, he would say, " Madam, or gentlemen, you 
are all fools and I am a swindler. ' ' 

****** 
The pangs of despised love are so universal a theme with 
those who would move the feelings even of this our well- 
dressed and well-disciplined generation, that I am tempted to 
believe most men and women have that skeleton in one of their 
closets. I have indeed known — we all have — many instances 
of it, and I have observed that the despising of love com- 
monly arises from the fact that the despised one has sought to 
mate unequally. We are all so unequal in every way when we 
arrive at the age for " falling in love," that it is a nice and 
difficult matter to find two persons who are exactly worth each 
other ; and this present difficulty is still further increased by 
the idea of what each feels capable of working out in the fu- 
ture ; besides which the whole is infinitely exaggerated and dis- 
torted by vanity, and by the small circle of opinion which each 
indi\ddual regards as the true measure of all things. Thus, 
without taking into consideration differences of rank and for- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 135 

tune — which, nevertheless, are to be considered — we find that 
when each reduces his or her moral, intellectual, and physical 
qualities to a common denominator, and adds them together, 
the sums total will be infinitely .various. And now comes the 
history of the despised one, which is usually this — that A, hav- 
ing made the calculation for self and B, and seeing B to pos- 
sess the superior capital, offers to go into partnership. B de- 
clines, and A remains one of the despised, and thenceforth 
fills the air with shrieks, as though B had done wrongfully to 
decline a bad bargain, and shamefully to look at it so far as to 
judge of its goodness or badness. 

***** * 

I once went to a theatre in Madrid to see a new piece played 
by actors and actresses none of w^iom I knew by sight. I had 
a playbill with the names of the actors and the names of the 
characters in the play ; but I found it absolutely impossible to 
match any one of the parts to any one of the players, the 
author having omitted that occasional mention of names which 
commonly affords the clue in such a case. So that to this day 
I don't know which character was the virtuous young man, 
which the foolish husband, or which the villain and arch- con- 
spirator, neither have I any idea which of the actors severally 
played the parts. 

I am always reminded of this when I reflect upon that per- 
petual comedy of politics which is played for our behoof. We 
all very readily see in it some virtue, more folly, and much 
villany. We know that there exist such people (for our play- 
bill-newspaper tells us so) as Disraeli, a minister of state ; Lord 
Derby, a diplomat ; Gladstone, a banished noble (rival of Dis- 
raeli) ; Gortschakoff and Bismarck, friends of numanity and 
champions of the oppressed ; MacMahon, a soldier of fortune ; 
Pius IX., a sovereign pontiff ; besides bravoes, peasants, con- 
spirators, and crowds, undistinguished. But which is which is 
more than any of us can make out. That man on the stage has 
just robbed the church. The fact is clear, for we have seen it. 
But is it Bismarck or Pius IX. who has so done ? Those 



136 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

others have hauled down a glorious banner and trampled upon 
it. Is Gladstone one of them, or is it Disraeli, or is it only 
the " Crowd" ? Here, again, is a plan for murdering and 
plundering an unsuspecting female. Are those men Gortschakoff 
and Bismarck, or merely two " conspirators" ? It is impossi- 
ble to tell. Unless, indeed, one first knew the real off-the- 
stage Disraeli, Gladstone, Gortschakoff, and Bismarck : then it 
were easy to recognize them even through their paint and their 
comedy-dress. Or even if one knew but one only of them one 
might by a process of elimination get at the others as the piece 
went on. But we do not and cannot know ; those who do 
know will not tell ; and as each act of the comedy closes we 
lift up our hands in astonishment, and let them fall in despair 
at the pitiful things, done by we know not whom. 

* -^ * * * * 

I believe our habit of interjectional conversation — the habit 
of flinging out a notion haphazard and leaving it there to take 
its chance — to be not merely the effect but also to a large ex- 
tent the cause of our lamentable laxity of thought. The cur- 
rent notion of conversation is satisfied by an interchange of 
short sentences, just suflBcient to carry a " view" or an " opin- 
ion ;" while it never enters anybody's head so much as to at- 
tempt an exhaustive statement leading to a reasonable conclu- 
sion, on any point. The reason of which is that scarcely any 
will take the trouble to collect the first elements required for a 
conclusion. Those who have taken that trouble cannot resolve 
the work into half a dozen words, if they would be intelligible. 
Perhaps a day will come when we shall see that the only excuse 
a man can have for saying anything is that he is able to say 
something — then, perhaps, we shall not be so impatient of giv- 
ing him the time to say it. 

% % % ^ % * 

Two doctrines always amuse me : that in order to be rich a 
man must save money, and that in order to be wise he must 
learn much. In reality the reverse is the truth. The measure 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 137 

of H man's wealth is not what he saves, bat what he spends ; the 
rest, which is merely what he may spend some day, is not yet 
and possibly never may be his. So also the measure of his 
wisdom is not at all what he knows, but what he dares outside 
his knowledge. That which he has learned is not his nor any 
part of him, but only that which he conjectures, supposes, and 
believes beyond it. The essential part of Columbus was not 
the knowledi^e he got from Ptolemy, Marco Polo, and Sir John 
Mandeville, but his bold belief that by sailing into the west he 
should discover a great continent. But, then, Columbus is 
well known to have been mad. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

What is it, then, that a man loves (as the word is) in a wo- 
man ? What is it that is so powerful as to make him give up 
all his approved beliefs, all his tried methods and principles, 
and deliver himself over to inconsequence and ridicule on a hint 
from that woman ? Assuredly it is not beauty, nor wit, nor 
wisdom, still less goodness or virtue of any kind ; for she may 
have none of these things, and be none the less powerful with 
him. What is it, then, that the man loves ? 

Speaking diffidently, and as one who only knows what he has 
been told, I should say that what he loves is — himself. It is 
not that he is blind to the defects and deformities of that 
woman, still less that he believes them to be beauties, and has 
therefore argued himself reasonably, even if from false prem- 
ises, into his " love " for her. Not at all. It is that that 
particular woman has found or chanced upon the kind of flat- 
tery he most loves ; that she has served it up to him in the 
most insinuating and unsuspected form ; and that he, as often 
as not unconsciously, has resolved to justify her, and to secure 
a constant repetition of that delicious testimony to himself 



138 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

wliicli she is ready to afford. By a word, by a look, by a ges- 
ture, she has in the first instance conveyed to him that she has 
seen and acknowledged that particular great quality of his ; 
this she has subsequently confirmed, and so long as she adheres 
to it the man is her slave. Now, women will readily continue 
to play upon that responsive chord, even after they have found 
out and laughed at the falsity of its note. For they, too, in 
love chiefly love themselves, and they get flattery for flattery. 
Yet, if one of them should tire of the comedy or should be- 
come aware that she can do better elsewhere with an equally 
small investment — and if at the same time the man fails to sup- 
ply himself immediately with the one desire of his soul — then 
he breaks out into bitter lamentation on the falsity of women. 
Sometimes it is their falsity of which he complains ; but as 
often as not it is of their return to truth, and the cessation of 
their ministration to his own false appetite. 



Palazzo Blanc-Bec, London, Tuesday, February 2. 

I am going through a fearful experience and yet not an unin- 
teresting one, for if one always finds something in the misfor- 
tunes of ones best friends that is not displeasing, one finds 
the same in one's own. 

My experience is that I am trying to get into a new house, 
and so far signally failing. I had been months about it ; I had 
conceived ideas and made plans for its fitting up and furnishing 
which, small as it is, were to make it the one only bachelor's 
house in London. I had made drawings in and out of per- 
spective of all the novelties ; I had met, and as I thought van- 
quished, the difficulties always incident to the new thing ; I 
had settled that I would have no gas, no coal, and no paper 
in the house, and had contrived all my methods of lighting 
by wax, heating by wood, and hanging with stuffs. I had 
preached all this as a new religion to an eminent upholsterer — 
and now, when I come back from foreign parts expecting to 
find all ready, I discover myself to be in the most desolate and 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 139 

melancholy desert ever seen since tlie time of Moses. I am 
sitting in the midst of a hopeless mass of furniture, which 
looks as if a sliipwreck had just taken place of all my house- 
hold gods, and am trying to smile. Of my two servants, one 
(the man of course) has deserted me, and gone I know not 
whither, and I only wonder I do not myself think it impossible 
to sleep here in the fairy palace I had contrived for myself. I 
am reminded of the rich man in the ancient writing who laid 
up much store for himself only to learn that that night his 
soul would be required of him. 

****** 

Wednesday. 
My male servant has definitely disinherited me. He met 
Rosine this morning, and informed her that his self-respect and 
regard for his health would not permit hira to sleep in a recently 
painted and white-washed room, and that he did not intend to 
come back. Considering that he was lately a trooper of 
Household Cavalry, and therefore presumably a soldier not 
careful of small discomforts, I receive this as a compliment to 
my own gigantic powers of endurance, who have just slept in 
such a room. Also I have telegraphed for Ned to leave the 
Billy Baby, and to come up and take me under his protection. 
Him I know I can rely upon at any rate, and if I had but Bill 
too I think I should feel quite easy. But this furniture is a 
great cross to bear. There seems enough to furnish Bucking- 
ham Palace in the middle of each room. All the fireplaces are 
wrong, being in that stage of alteration when it is impossible to 
burn coals in them any longer, and not yet possible to burn 
wood. We can't find any of the candlesticks, a damp place 
has declared itself in the dining-room, all the chimneys want 
sweeping, and none of the locks, cocks, taps, bolts, or bars will 

work. * 

****** 

Wednesday Evening. 

Ned has arrived, and I am saved. The furniture and books 

are all more hopeless than ever, in consequence of their having 



140 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

been partially arranged, and the fireplaces are much in the 
same state ; but now I have two people who mean business and 
make the best of things. I have taken solemn possession of 
my palace by dining at home. It has been a matter of some 
contrivance. Ned went out and bought everything as the 
want occurred. Rosine turned out a perfect little repast, which 
justifies that reputation for a '* honne cuisine hourgeois^^ on 
which I took her, and I am once more happy in the midst of 
chaos. As for Ned, he is radiant with delight at being up 
in London town, and active and ready as ever, while he regards 
his room (the room which the household trooper rejected) as 
a dream almost too magnificent to be real. 

****** 

I fancy that the importance given to such material surround- 
ings as furniture, books, and " comforts" generally, is a pure 
invention as well as an innovation. Any man ought to be 
happy with a table, an inkstand, a pen, and a sheet of paper. 
It is not the things but the people about him that affect him in 
any important way. And those of old times were right who 
made it their object to have retainers rather than goods, and 
thus showed that they preferred troops of friends to heaps of 

furniture. 

****** 

Rosine says that Ned is a marine monster, that he knows 
nothing, and can't even speak in pantomime, and that she 
doesn't know what to do with him. / shall go to bed. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

An honest plagiarist is the most effectual work of God. He 
it is who having had the top rail broken by the original thinker 
makes the gap through which all the other sheep pass, and he 
is entitled to all the real credit for having adopted, assimilated, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 141 

and made muscle out of the original idea, because it is not his 
own. To love one's own children is an easy virtue — being, in- 
deed, only a kind of conceit ; but to adopt the children of 
others out of the gutter, and to set them on thrones till the 
elders blow trumpets before them — this is not so easy, and is 
by so much the more praiseworthy. And this also is to be re- 
marked, that it is the plagiarist and not the original man who 
does the work ; it is not John the Baptist, who was right from 
the beginning, but Saul who first distinguished himself by ston- 
ing the prophets. For the plagiarist also adds something of 
his own to the original idea — no idea can pass through the 
human mind without having something added — little, per- 
haps, but often precisely that little which was required to 
stamp the original gold as current coin. There are not more 
than half a dozen original ideas conceived in a generation ; and 
since we cannot all be the first to conceive them, it were best 
we should most of us at the least adopt one, and provide it 
with food and raiment. 

****** 

There is only one science, properly to be so called, which 
is that of relativity. To know the part that a given man, 
thing, principle, virtue, or vice plays in the world is to know 
all that is to be known about that. And it is precisely what 
most men never do know. To hit upon the relatively impor- 
tant by chance is talent ; to choose it by conscious choice, and 
to reject for it the relatively unimportant, is ability ; to give 
to the important its due place, and yet to retain the power of 
treating the unimportant, is reserved for genius. I recognize 
genius in Napoleon (I mean, of course, that Napoleon who had 
the honor of being the uncle of his nephew) when I find him 
dealing fully with the subject of gaiters and harness. 
******* 

There is nothing, perhaps, which so clearly indicates and 
measures the great decline of those finer and higher feelings 
which men of race are supposed to possess (and which they 



142 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

should possess if tliey are not impostors) than this custom 
which has arisen of selling a noble or a gentle name for money. 
To do this is, besides being a flagrant breach of faith, a kind 
of social blasphemy, and a distinct act of social prostitution. 
Here is one who has inherited a great name, representing great 
traditions, and carrying with it equally great obligations. It 
is assumed by all men that he who bears that name cannot lie, 
or cheat, or descend to mean things ; that wherever it is 
found it is a tower of strength, and a sure guarantee of truth 
and honesty. Yet there is sometimes — nay, there is often — 
found a man, who, possessing such a name, makes no scruple 
of selling it to the first adventurer who will bid for it to ticket 
his wares withal. And if it be found that the wares are false, 
the gentleman who has given his name as their warranty thinks 
it enough to reply that he did not know it, as though the 
name itself were not a pledge given that he did know. A 
name of the so-called " influential" kind, whether made or in- 
herited by its possessor, is a pledge of honesty and truth, and 
of the knowledge required to substantiate truth and honesty, 
which should only be given when it can be redeemed ; and he 
who gives it otherwise is the worst kind of social swindler, 
far worse than the dealer in any other kind of base coin. 
****** 
I admire the foolhardy way in which men fall into love, as 
it is called. It is like the letting out of water. They begin 
with a mere idea of amusing themselves, and go on mostly 
with the same notion — till one day they wake up and find that 
there is a woman who can add ten years to their life whenever 
she chooses ; that for them the relative importance of things 
has been fundamentally changed, and that there is a certain 
little creature in the world whose moods and acts, whose 
fancies and follies have suddenly discovered themselves to be 
of greater consequence than all those weighty matters hitherto 
known to be such. They scarcely admit it to themselves, 
they will very hardly admit it to anybody else, and only with 
reluctance, perhaps, to the little creature herself ; but they 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 143 

know from their own incomprehensible acts that the whole of 
their phm is thrown out of perspective, and that at any 
moment they may be deprived of their sleep, their digestion, 
and all their earthly happiness through a mere whim of a fool- 
ish woman. And the amusing part of it is that, when this 
happens, instead of taking warning from it never to fall into 
that trap again, they have but one object, which is to fasten it 
once more securely round their leg. It is lucky for us we are 
all such fools, or we should very soon get tired of ourselves, 
which at present is not a common failing. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Truly God is good. And those who would know it have 
only to be out and about this beautiful country of ours early 
one of these winter mornings. I think there is nothing, for 
those who will but look at it and take it in, that more surely 
lifts up the heart in thanksgiving. Do look at it with me. 
Those warm, russet, velvety expanses of plough, so soft you 
could bury your nose in them as a child does in his mother's 
breast ; those green fields lying along the flanks of the hills, so 
delicately powdered with hoar-frost ; those rich brown hedge- 
rows and trees, echelonned into the distance, and taking from 
the air each one its particular " value" of color ; that white 
road that curves over the shoulder of the declivity, and carries 
away with it the slowest imagination ; and over all that deli- 
cious soft gray sky, unlit by the sun, yet enriching all things 
with tender coloring ; do not they all turn heavenw^ard their 
faces with an unceasing and ever- varying chorus of praise ? and 
can you and I refrain from joining in it ? Shall we not rather 
the more readily and certainly joinin it than we do in the gar- 
ish summer, now that we see, as it were, the mere skeletons of 
things, and behold that they also are very good ? And shall 



144 FLOTSAM AI5"D JETSAM. 

we not, when we come to think of that, be ashamed that there 
are times when we pass by and see no beauty in them ? 
* * * 4t * * 

It is a curious notion, that which all people seem to enter- 
tain, that they are living at the end of the world. It is often 
said and written, in form direct and indirect, that we owe re- 
spect and reverence to the ages that have preceded us, which 
are presented besides as affording the most useful examples for 
our good guidance. And rightly so. But do we not also owe 
much — nay much more — to the ages that are to follow ? Do 
we not at least owe as much to these as we have received 
from those, in the way of example, and is not our responsibil- 
ity to them on the whole much greater ? From antiquity we 
receive advantages, to posterity we owe duties. For nothing 
that we do is without its effect on the times to come. All our 
acts are imposed upon our successors with a resistless force ; 
he who plants a tree endows them with its good or evil fruit ; 
and those who doubt whether that fruit must necessarily be 
eaten, have but to recall the numberless times and ways in 
which they have been brought up, all standing, by a wall they 
have found ready built, and which, do all they will, they can- 
not overturn. True in physical, this is even more true in 
moral concerns. He who launches a false idea imposes on 
men to come a false belief and false conduct ; and yet there 
are many who will launch it, knowing it to be false, for the 
mere sake of what they wrongly suppose to be their own im- 
mediate gain, and still more who will launch it without asking 
whether it be true or false. On such the curse of all genera- 
tions must fall. 

****** 

Most men, and women too, fail, I believe, to come into the 
foremost rank among their fellows, not because it is so diflScult 
to win the first place as because it is so easy to win a second. 
Seeing this early in the race, as all must see it who are in the 
race at all, they run for the second, and only too late become 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 145 

aware that they too were capable of winning the first. It is 
so inviting, when you have started and are pulling yourself 
together for a desperate struggle, to see a hand held out to 
you offering a crown of any kind, and a seat of honor of any 
dignity ; and the major part, looking to the length of the 
course, have not strength to resist the temptation, and so throw 
away their chance. Many a statesman, who might have won 
imperishable glory for himself and his country, has been lured 
away by an under-secretaryship or a party leadership of first 
or second order ; many a woman who might have been a pattern 
of true womanhood has been tempted by a *' position" to be- 
come one of the common pattern. 

****** 

Formerly it was the man who did great things who was 
honored, now it is the man who talks great things ; as though 
talk were of any possible value whatever, except in so far as it 
indicates or provokes to action ; or as though the tree should 
be judged, not by its fraits, but by the noise of the wind that 
blows through it. Yet to talk well is held to be a great gift 
in itself, and men are chosen for no other reason than this to 
be the rulers of states and the arbiters of human destinies. 
That is, indeed, the essence of what is called parliamentary 
government — from which the Lord deliver us ! 

****** 

To be above fortune and superior to care is, I believe, even 
still admitted to be the ideal state to which man should tend. 
Nevertheless, the only notion now current of reaching it is, 
that a man should increase those possessions which are the 
most exposed to fortune and the most fruitful sources of care. 
To gain money, respect, troops of acquaintance with hat in 
hand, is held to be the business of every creature ; and it is 
forgotten that exactly in proportion as he succeeds, so does he 
increase his vulnerability to the attacks from without. The 
distinction between him who has everything and him who has 
nothing is, that the former is everywhere vulnerable and the 



146 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

latter nowhere ; that the former cannot change but for the 
worse, and the latter only for the better. Is this, therefore, 
to say that we are to seek nothing ? By no means. But it is 
to say that we are to seek nothing that any can take away from 
us ; that we are to work for neither money, respect, nor any 
of the prizes exposed, but only for the true secret internal tes- 
timony of our own conscience that we have done well ; the 
which, as none can give it, so none can take it away. This is 
thoroughly old, and therefore entirely new. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

There are many things at which I always laugh heartily 
within myself, and at which, if I were the strong man armed, 
the prophet, or the martyr, I should laugh outright. One of 
these is the notion that England is a ** free" country, when in 
reality we all well know, and most of us act upon the knowl- 
edge, that it is free only to such as hang upon the cha,riot 
wheels of the powers that be. It is free to anybody to do or 
to say anything that is already generally or partially admitted 
in good society ; it is free to him to say that Mr. Disraeli is 
wrong or right in his policy, that Mr. Whalley is a lunatic. Dr. 
Kenealy an obnoxious creature, and Mr. Mitchel a traitor ; but 
let him only say the entirely new thing, or in other words that 
which has not yet been received, and he will be stoned, as was 
Saint Stephen, and as all pioneers have been. There is, 
indeed, an exception to this, which is, that any, even the new 
thing, may be said, if only it be said ineffectually, in such a 
way and with such a voice that it cannot get into men's ears. 
In short, you may in England say what you like provided 
nobody listens to you, and do what you like provided nobody 
follows you. That is the measure of English freedom. 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 147 

Another thing that amuses me is, to see that, in spite of 
Jeremy Bentham and other barefaced apostles of the principle 
so called of self-interest ill -understood, we do, all of us, to this 
day, expect and look to all men, other than ourselves, for acts 
dictated by quite other and opposite motives. We do expect 
our judges to be above bribes, the safe taking of which is abso- 
lutely dictated by self-interest ; we do expect our ministers to 
be patriotic rather than partisan ; we claim that even the 
tradesman shall be ** honest," that is, shall be faithful to his 
word at the cost of profit. We claim that each of them shall, 
and we often go so far as to assume that they will, act upon 
this sentiment, this breath, this notion, that there is something 
more binding upon them than the desire to win as much as 
they can for themselves from the rest of mankind. And yet 
we each claim for ourselves that we alone may act quite unscn- 
timentally and wholly selfishly. Is this not truly risible, if 
there were left in us any sense of humor — which, indeed, is 
but the sense of congruity ? 

****** 

It is strange enough that as soon as we come to be alone, 
we always admit ourselves to be much smaller people than such 
as we present ourselves to the world. This prince or that 
noble or statesman produces himself to the universe at large as 
though he were the inhabitant of splendid saloons, clothed in 
purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day. But 
when the universe at large is not there, he is found living in a 
back parlor, clad in a second-hand shooting-coat, and dining 
off a chop cooked by the kitchenmaid, washed down by a pint 
of his third-class claret. Yet if there be anything in the ap- 
purtenances with which he furnishes himself for presentation 
in the face of the universe it, is surprising indeed he should 
himself alone abandon the enjoyment of them. I should ex- 
pect to see him, most of all when alone, surrounded by those 
his attributes, if indeed they are his attributes. I should ex- 
pect to find him living in the best drawing-room, with all the 
lights lit, dining with his score of lackeys and calling on his 



148 FLOTSAM AlfD JETSAM. 

cordon bleu, and his butler, for their highest efforts. But 
then, perhaps, there is 7iot anything in them, or perhaps they 
are not his proper attributes, but only an affectation reserved 
for the outsider. 



'* Messieurs de la Maison du Roi, assurez vos chapeaux ; 
nous avons I'honneur de charger." 

Such was the formula with which the Household Cavalry 
of the Grand Monarch were hurled into battle ; and, ridiculous 
as it may seem to some, it indicated that the troopers thus ad- 
dressed were gentlemen, fighting for what they called honor, 
which, whatever it may have been, was better than what we 
call " pay and advantages," or what other nations call con- 
scription. If we knew it, perhaps, we should rather envy than 
affect to laugh at those who could be addressed as though they 
were taking the lives of their fellows for something to them in- 
telligible ; for it is more than can be said of any soldiers during 
these last hundred years. To these no appeal is made — not 
even to their prejudices — neither is any reason presented to 
them. It is said by some leader of a faction, or mere chief of 
a conspiracy, '* Thou shalt kill," and straightway each of them 
kills and holds himself innocent. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

It is not so much that nothing is what it professes to be, as 
that everything is the contrary of what it professes to be ; that 
paradox is received for truth, and truth treated as paradox. 
Take anything you please — say wisdom itself. What is wis- 
dom ? Nought else but that which is approved as such by the 
general consent of mankind. Else it may be that madmen are 
wise, notwithstanding that mankind shuts them up and puts 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 149 

strait-waistcoats upon them. But now those who have been 
thus admitted to be wise have united in declaring tliat mankind 
in general are fools ; so that these wise ones themselves only 
hold their wisdom by the suffrage of fools, that is, by a title 
which is of no avail. Whence it follows, that wisdom, so 
called, is likely to be folly after all — which is true. 

Or take '* progress," that word which we all have in our 
mouth as representing something excellent. What is it ? 
What else than change, which is death as well as life ? So far 
as I can make out, it means coal, gas, railways, machinery, 
electric telegraphs, parliamentary government, universality of 
taxation, centralization — or, as it is called, unity of govern- 
ment. Well and good, if these were improvements, as is as- 
sumed ; but are they not exactly the reverse ? And are not 
those of us who think found coming back, whenever they can, 
and as a mere matter of profit, to the practice of the times 
before progress was ? Has it not by these been imagined that 
it is better to burn wood than coal ; to use oil than gas ; to 
ride than to steam ; to have the diverse and always human 
fruits of manual labor rather than the always similar and in- 
human results of the machine ; to wait for handwriting, or 
even for speech, rather than be content with the telegram ; to 
have governors amenable to the State, rather than factionists 
responsible to a party ; to have the rich pay the taxes out of 
that they have, rather than the poor out of that they have not ; 
to multiply centres of power, rather than to diminish and unite 
them ? And if all this be true, is not progress rather a curse 
than a blessing ? As for me, I never see a gas-chandelier (so 
called), travel on a railway, recognize the product of a machine, 
receive a telegram, read the words of a parliamentarian, pay a 
tax, or submit to a hard and fast general statute, but I feel in- 
clined to abuse the " progress" which has given us all these 
blessings. 

****** 

It has been said that the object of a man's life should be to 
do all things well and one thing better than any other man. 



150 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

Yet that seems to present the most lamentable and most humil- 
iating notion possible of the ideal man. It amounts to this, 
that he is to exist for the gallery ; that he is to do all things so 
as to avoid their contempt, and one thing so as to excite their 
admiration. Whereas it seems to me, that whenever and so 
soon as a man at all regards the gallery he is lost, and has ut- 
terly renounced all his chance of separate existence, which is to 
say all his chances of any existence whatever. He himself, and 
not any other body, is his own judge, and unless he can bring 
himself before his own tribunal and establish that by its laws 
he has done all things well — nay, and all things better than 
anybody else — he is a failure and a mere imitation man. No 
doubt we all know that that is precisely what we are ; but that 
does not go to say that that is what we should all seek to be. 

God forbid ! 

****** 

There are many who in these days believe, not only that the 
greater number of Englishmen are thieves, but that thieving 
is excusable, if not defensible, whenever a fair opportunity is 
given for it. The doctrine, indeed, is not put into that form 
— but into this, which, however, amounts to exactly the same 
thing : that it is criminal to expose people to the *' tempta- 
tion" to thieve, or in other words to afford them the opportu- 
nity ; and even scarcely less criminal not to make thieving im- 
possible. All which amounts to this ; that the desire to steal 
is a natural and fair operation of natural instincts ; whence, if 
it be so, this follows also : that the desire to conserve " prop- 
erty" is an unnatural instinct. And this indeed is so far 
believed that the Deputy Chairman of the Surrey Sessions has 
" concurred" in the *' denunciation of the practice of tempting 
the poor by the exposure of articles," and declared it to be " a 
great temptation to expose goods in the manner constantly 
done. ' ' It may as well be said that it is a great temptation to 
a deputy chairman to talk arrant nonsense. Either the princi- 
ple of property is respectable and ought to be respected, or it 
is damnable and a robbery, as Proudhon declared it. In the 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 15X 



former case exposure of it to attack furnishes no excuse for its 
violation ; in the latter the most complete material defence of 
it can furnish no argument for its maintenance. 



CHAPTER XXXY. 

Sitting in the stalls of a theatre the other night I observed 
a lad}^ next me lean forward and examine a shawl-cloak belong- 
ing to the lady in front of her. Having glanced at it an in- 
stant she leaned back again, and turning to her companion, said, 
with that look of scorn and disgust which the female face alone 
can construct, " Paisley !" whereat they both smiled contempt- 
uously. 

Why, then, was this shawl less admirable for being Paisley 
than it would have been had it been a true Kashmir ? Mainly 
because the one is machine and the other man-made. The 
results of the two Qiethods of making are indeed very differ- 
ent, for the Paisley — spite of the " progress" it represents — 
can never give the same rich yet soft blending of colors, or the 
same interesting accidents of design. Yet to those who look to 
regularity in design and execution (as though that were of any 
value apart from proportion) the Paisley product should ap- 
pear the preferable. It does not, however, so appear, even to 
these ; and the only reason, if you come to look into it and to 
find it, is, that the Paisley shawl brings you only mediately 
into contact with the human being who made it, while the 
Kashmir brings you into the contact immediately. Turn it up 
and you will see where the cunning needle has crossed and re- 
crossed those delicate silken fibres ; you seem to assist at the 
long, unwearied, loving labor that has been spent over it, to 
follow the dusky travailer through the intricacies of the design, 
and to sympathize even with those little faiUngs to follow it out 
which here and there you trace. The Paisley machine makes 



152 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

you a hundred thousand shawls of the same pattern, and all 
alike ; the Kashmir embroiderer may make ten, and all unlike, 
yet more like the original than the Paisley for having kept the 
intention, if they have lost part of the form. Who would, or 
who, however " progressive," could, value the hundred thou- 
sandth part of the life of a machine as he would the tenth part 
of the life of a man ? 



I remember one who said that he loved men too well to care 
for dogs. No doubt this was a lunatic, for I always meet a score 
of persons who care much for one dog, to one who cares any- 
thing for the whole of mankind. The tyranny of the dog, in fact, 
is fearful. The whole of one's life has to be regulated by its 
requirements. I have one consumed by two delusions : that a 
looking-glass can be drunk like water, because she can see her- 
self in it as she can in water, and that vehicles of all kinds are 
capable of being immediately stopped by running after and 
barking at their hind-wheels. And whereas I believe that I 
take her out in order to run after me, she believes that I take 
her out in order to run after her. Nevertheless, as she is the 
only one of her sex I have ever been able to get to live with 
me on any terms, and as she humors my weaknesses, I am de- 
voted to her, and do run when she insists upon it. I believe 
the real reason why one prefers dogs to human beings is that 
they have little sense of, and no memory for, injustice. 
* * * '^ * * 

It was one of the ten wishes of Henry IV. of France to re- 
duce all the religions of Europe to three only, the result of 
which he believed would be that Europeans would be less 
divided. In this I believe him to have been thoroughly wrong, 
as, indeed, every man must be who would rearrange the world 
on notions derived from an earnest contemplation of his own 
interests. The form of religion is somewhat a matter of cli- 
mate and temperament, and no form of it can gain a perma- 
nent hold that is not suitable to the locality and the people to 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 153 

whom it is presented. The desirable thing, therefore, is, not 
that forms of religion should be diminished, but that they 
should be increased in number and variety ; until, if it be pos- 
sible, every tongue and every nation may possess a sufficient 
number to cover the belief- capability of every individual in 
it. For what is essential is, that every man should thoroughly 
possess those beliefs that are called religious. And this, be it 
observed, does not touch true religion itself, of which the basis 
is always the same in whatever form or through whatever dog- 
mas it is conveyed. It would be well if men were not driven 
to the last desperate resort of irreligion by finding no form of 
religion which they can receive — which will never be, until the 
professors recognize that form is of no moment. But then the 
professors live by the form, 

****** 
I -saw a man to-day pass by a beggar with a contemptuous 
pitiless glance ; and I said to myself that, considering how 
many hard men and armor-cased with political economy there 
are in the world, the beggar's trade must be a poor one. 
When the hard man had gone a little way, he stopped, frown- 
ed, put his hand in his pocket, and drawing thence a sixpence 
went back and gave it to the beggar — upon which I saw that I 
was a fool. The thought of the hard man had clearly gone 
through several stages : first disgust, then toleration, then 
pity, and, finally, fellow-feeling must have moved him, all in 
half a dozen paces ; or perhaps it were more correct to say 
that he had felt none of these truly, and maybe least of all that 
on which he finally acted ; for if he had, he could not thus 
have successively abandoned each one for another, or so quickly 
have faced clean about. But it is enough to show that the 
final acts of men like him — which make up the history of the 
world — are not to be guessed at or predicted from aught they 
may profess, however honestly, at a given moment. What they 
say, they say not from any conviction, but out of a desire to say 
something, which is usually premature. And if you, being a 
fool, a fanatic, or a rogue, only go on hammering away at the 



154 Flotsam and jetsam. 

same appeal, ana remain accessible, as likely as not they will 
come back to you and give you that you ask. 

****** 

Reading an old black-letter chronicle, printed in 1580, I find 
that in 1523 a Parliament assembled at the " Blacke Friers" 
on the 15th of April, and that " after long debating the Com- 
mons granted two shillings of the pound of every man's goodes 
and lands that were worth twentie pound, or might dispend 
twentie pound by yeare, and so upward, and from forty shil- 
lings to twentie pound twelve pence of the pound, and under 
forty shillings of every head sixteene years and upward, four 
pence to be paid in two years." Now, as it appears from the 
same record that beef was then a halfpenny per pound and 
mutton three farthings, we may assume that money represented 
something like thirty times what it does now. The state of 
the matter, therefore, was this : that those who had an income 
of £600 or upward paid an income-tax of ten per cent, while 
they who had an income of £60 or upward paid but five per 
cent, and those who had less than this paid but ten shillings 
each, spread over two years. Yet if it were now proposed that 
the rich man should be taxed in double proportion to the 
moderately well-to-do and ten times as heavily as the poor, it 
would be said to be a thing unwarranted by any example in the 
world. Nevertheless all the subsidies that were of old granted 
to English monarchs were calculated in this same way, so as to 
levy a progressively higher percentage on the richer tax-pay- 
ers. And in those times, too, the poor had their own prop- 
erty in the shape of Church lands, one third of the revenue 
of which was theirs by law ; and also in the shape of six mill- 
ions of acres of common land. Anybody, therefore, may see 
how great a cause the poorer sort have to bless the Reforma- 
tion, which deprived them of the monasteries ; the first Revo- 
lution, which endowed them with equal taxation ; and the 
second Revolution, which provided them with a standing army 
and a national debt. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 155 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

** By Jove, I am not covetous of gold, but if it be a sin to 
covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.'* So said 
Hotspur, and it is a saying that might send a thrill of enthu- 
siasm through the soul of a miser — if there be such a creature 
not in lunacy, which I doubt. It seems, indeed, so splendid, 
so godlike, to have none of the vulgar covetousness, but that 
other only which has always been held noble. Yet if they be 
looked at, there is little indeed to choose between them in their 
demerits. To covet honor is to covet not even the good opin- 
ion of men — which, God knows, is worth little enough — but 
only their good words, which do not always represent a good 
opinion, and are therefore worthless. It once meant to be 
quick in quarrel, to ride foremost in the fray, to protect ladies, 
and to be cited for these things between men for an ensample ; 
in these latter days it simply means to have your name often in 
the newspapers. This is not very hard to achieve for a man 
who will take the trouble ; moreover, when once the news- 
papers do begin there is no stopping them, and the name will 
go to the furthest ends of the globe six days a week regularly. 
But the facility with which this " honor" is gained, and the 
wideness of its reach, is more than equalled by its evanes- 
cence. There are those whose names filled columns of the 
journals ten years ago, and whom now nobody remembers or 
could remember. His is a very strong " honor" indeed that 
will live a generation. The names of the honorable men to be 
found, for instance, in the " Greville Memoirs" that are not 
absolutely new to this generation, may be counted on the 
fingers. Is it likely that their present successors will fare 
better ? Will anybody know fifty years hence who John 
Bright was, or Vernon Harcourt, or the fifteenth Earl of 
Derby ? Will anybody at that distance of time be ready to 
believe off-hand that Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Ward Hunt, 
Lord Hartington, and the Earl of Ripon ever swayed their 



156 i-LOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

country's destinies ? Judging from past experience, it seems 
higMy improbable. So that, in spite of all teaching, they 
may yet be found wise who contemn glory, and prize above it 
that inner consciousness of having done their whole duty, 
which, while it never yet brought present honor, always brings 
present satisfaction. 

****** 

He who would really do a work in this world must find a man 
and a woman. And these must belong to him, as he belongs to 
himself, and be felt to be as trustworthy (at least) as himself 
through fair weather or foul. The woman is of first necessity 
in order to dispose and get rid of women. Then, being free to 
put himself into his work, he must find the man who is fit to 
be his ally. Being alone, he is a visionary or a lunatic, but 
having gained his one man he has gained in him the whole of 
mankind. For it is thenceforth but a repetition of the same 
process that is required, and against two men standing wholly 
together nothing can avail. I speak only of such a one as has 
found something to do and means to do it. He who merely 
means to pass the time need possess neither man nor woman — 
not even himself. 

****** 

The misfortune of the truly great is that they are great ; 
that is to say, that they have no appeal from themselves, and 
must therefore rely upon themselves alone. Just as a colonial 
governor can never dine out in his colony, so they can never 
submit themselves to judgment. For who is to judge the wise 
man of his wisdom ? Not the fools ; for that were absurd. 
But between two wise men, who in their wisdom disagree, who 
is to judge ? Again, not the fools ; for that were still more 
absurd, since the point of disagreement is too knotty even for 
the wise to decide. Who then ? None but the wise them- 
selves. But this is despotism. It is. If you object to it, let 
us suppose that the fools shall judge. That is democracy. 
Then comes the question who are the wise ? To which you re- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. Ibll 

ply that the fools are the best judges, at any rate of that. 
Whereupon I thank you and go my ways. 

****** 

It is not that the woman you love is different from all other 
women, but that all other women are different from her. Pos- 
sibly they are better — that is nothing to the point, any more 
than it is that Velasquez could show you a better portrait than 
you will ever see in a mirror. For she shows you that you 
have already in your inner self as the portrait in which you de- 
light, and all that does not answer to it is to you as though it 
did not exist. It may all be admirable ; yet not only can you 
by no means grasp the admiration of it, but you can only feel 
a generous toleration for those who, being ignorant of what 
you know, put those admirable qualities above those others 
with which you alone are acquainted. For it is the distinctive 
mark and proof that you love this woman, when you are con- 
vinced beyond all possibility of demonstration that you know 
her as none else does. 



It is startling enough to remember that men can never appre- 
ciate anything in its own original self, that they will not even 
regard it until it has been translated to them, and that then all 
their admiration is reserved for the translation itself without its 
bringing them one whit nearer to an appreciation of the origi- 
nal. The thing, the man, the truth is nothing ; the comment 
and the commentator are everything. This beautiful world of 
ours would be unknown save for the poet ; the very human 
form would never have been regarded save for the artist ; the 
axiom does not exist till it is aflfirmed by the philosopher ; 
the notion is not with us till it is revealed by the prophet ; and 
once they have hardly done their copying work, we all fall to 
worshipping the copy and think no more of the original than 
we did before. Doubtless the poet, the artist, the philosopher, 
and the prophet are only recognized as such in so far as they 
appeal successfully to that sense of what they preach which has 



158 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

hitherto lain dormant and dull within us. Doubtless we only- 
see the infinite beauty of that blade of grass when it is point- 
ed out, because we had previously the power of seeing it with- 
out its being pointed out had we set to work. But it is pre- 
cisely because he who shows it to us has done for us the work 
which we then know we ought to have done for ourselves, that 
we are grateful to him. So that it is not because the poet has 
brought us to see the poetry of the thing that we value him, 
but rather because he has rendered it unnecessary for us to seek 
its poetry in it, he having done this, as we think, for us, and 
done it sufficiently. Wherefore we look rather less to the 
thing than before, and are content with the poem which is, as 
we hold, its full translation. That is why we affect to love poe- 
try and yet despise the world ; why we rejoice in art and yet 
are shocked at the human form ; why we honor the prophet 
and blaspheme the idea ; why we crown the philosopher and 
deny the truth. Otherwise each of us must seek to be poet, 
artist, philosopher, and prophet to himself — which would in- 
volve using the talents tliat God has given us — which is not to 
be thought of. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Railways and newspapers are to me the chief horrors of 
what is called (and God knows why) a " state of civilization.'' 
It is not so much the railway or the newspaper, but the abso- 
lute and unavoidable necessity of travelling by the one and of 
reading the other that is so terrible. It is not that they ill fulfil 
their purpose, but that they have eaten up and destroyed all 
other methods of fulfilling it, and that they are the only means 
now extant of movement and information. The hardship of it 
is that there is no choice — that you cannot travel except by 
rail, or learn anything of what is being done in the world ex- 
cept from newspapers. Posting, riding, and even walking are 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 159 

extinct, ejtcopt as feeders of the " lines ;" writing and conver- 
sation no longer have any existence, save as the preliminary 
stages of publication. And here comes the Nemesis, which 
is, that both railways and newspapers, having first destroyed 
all their rivals, have now at last destroyed the very objects of 
their own existence. They have made a complete end of 
travelling and of information, and have substituted for the 
former the transport of men as goods are transported, and for 
the latter rumor and the conflict of many lies. Sterne, when 
he made his sentimental journej'^ to Paris, travelled ; the time 
he spent on the voyage was delightfully employed and thor- 
oughly filled, and something was added by it to his life ; but 
a journey to Paris now merely represents so much time abso- 
lutely subtracted from life. We do it, indeed, in ten hours 
instead of five days, but that only means that we lose ten hours 
instead of gaining five days, which is a bad bargain. And 
so also with newspapers. There is more reading accessi- 
ble, but less real information. Those who know, know that 
there is rarely a line in any newspaper that can safely be read 
merely as it is printed, so that the constant reader only attains 
to great confusion, and not to greater knowledge. All which 
is ** progress." 

****** 
When Bacon published his " Organon," a smart man said 
of it that ' ' it was a book which a fool could not and a wise 
man would not have written." There was, perhaps, more 
truth in the saying than would now be believed. I begin to 
think that Bacon is the real father of most of our troubles ; for 
indeed it was he who first invented and erected into a religion 
that " inductive" method of dealing with natural science which 
consists in fitting the theory to the facts* The result is that 
every theory appears to be and is accepted as being absolutely 
true, so long as all the known facts can be brought within it ; 
and that every man may have his own perfect theory according 
to his own knowledge or ignorance. Such a one has seen that 
the sun rises in the east and sets in the west ; for him, there- 



160 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

fore, the theory is perfect that the sun moves roimd the earth. 
But such another one has learned another fact, and for him the 
theory is that the earth moves round the sun. Each will be 
and each, according to the Baconic method, is justified in being 
fully satisfied with this theory until he has acquired a new fact 
to disturb it, and to render a fresh one necessary. In truth, 
upon this plan no one could be certain that his theory is per- 
fect, or, in other words, that his belief is true, unless he is pre- 
viously certain that his knowledge is perfect ; but the essence 
of the system is that each is certain till the new fact proves 
him wrong. So that the result of this inductive method is to 
endow ignorance with the certainty that only rightfully belongs 
to knowledge. The elder Aristotelian method of fitting the 
facts to the theory had at least this advantage, that it enabled 
one to convict the theorist. A tailor who makes a coat to fit 
a man is a useful person, but a tailor who should make a coat 
that would fit all men would be a genius. 

* * ¥f * * * 

' ' Wise men learn from reason, fools from experience, " is a 
saying which has often been repeated in various forms. But 
in reality there is nothing so difiicult as to learn from experi- 
ence — which is to say, to learn from the result of one series of 
event how to deal with another and a different series. For no 
two series, and, indeed, it may be said no two events, are ever 
wholly alike, so that no experience is every wholly applicable. 
And that being so, the original question still remains, how far 
it is applicable, which involves the reconsideration of the whole 
matter, which amounts to an exclusion of experience. If we 
only knew it, the simplest and shortest way through all the 
tangles of life were still to keep hold on the clue which has been 
given to us in such intelligence as we may possess. But that 
involves thought, and thought involves labor, being, indeed, 
the hardest kind of labor, which all of us seek most to avoid. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 161 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



I HAVE a notion that wc most of us wear onr life the searay 
side without. Whether it be in order to convince other 
people, or in order to persuade ourselves into the one only truly 
delicious belief that we are martyrs, wc all seem to go about to 
say that we are worse off than we are. I declare I never yet 
met a man or woman who would admit that he or she was 
rich, happy, fortunate in love, lucky at play, or successful in 
the last new fashion. I have thirty thousand a year, but if 
you only knew the calls on me to keep up that estate ; I have 
youth, health, good looks, and no conscience, but Phillida 
flouts me, and the whole universe can't produce me a match 
for that bay ; the only woman I ever loved responds to my 
flame, but why on earth does she still go on flirting, God 
knows to what extent, with that or those others ? This out- 
side edge backward is good, but look at my broken nose 
earned in achieving it ; the bonnet is pretty, but when I was 
in Paris I saw others which were really sweet, only I couldn't 
afford them. " We are all miserable martyrs, let appearances 
say what they will ; we swear we are martyrs, and if you don't 
admire our courage in bearing up under it all, you have no 
heart." Nevertheless, perhaps some of us when we get alone, 
or lie concealed in that particular retreat of delectation which 
is known to us only, do sometimes think to ourselves, not how 
unhappy but how very happy we are. And then we go out 
into the world, and take up the old burden of woe — possibly 
for fear lest somebody should find out our treasure and come 
and steal it away 

■* -^ * * * * 

Bacon once said that knowledge should neither be '' a couch 
whereon to recline a searching and restless spirit, nor a terrace 
for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with 
a fair prospect, nor a tower of state for a proud mind to raise 



1G2 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

itself upon, nor a fort or commanding ground for strife and 
contention, nor a shop for profit or sale — but a rich storehouse 
for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate." 
Which is to say that the business of each man is to sow 
himself in order that the world at large may reap ; and this, 
indeed, is true. If one should seek either knowledge or any 
other thing for his own sole uses, his work were very slight, 
and soon done, for the capacity for enjoyment of each is 
limited ; but to fill the measure of the glory of the Creator, 
which means the full development of the potentialities of the 
creation and the relief of man's estate — which is the complete 
material happiness of mankind — this is a work which will last 
every man his life through. And if it be that it is worth while 
to go into that vineyard at all, the whole faculties and force, 
to the last ounce, of the laborer must be brought into and be 
continued in action to the end. The couch, the terrace, the 
tower, the fort, and the shop are not for him, but only an in- 
cessant painful toil of gathering stores with one hand and dis- 
tributing them with the other. He must look for no peace, 
no delectation, no rest even, but a continual round of work. 
And, as men are constituted, he is in the safest position who 
has the most and the sharpest goads to work. So that, if I 
were asked to provide a man with capital for his life, I should 
provide him with poverty, debt, unrequited love, doubts, and 
enemies. There are few who, when they are quit of these, do 
anything worth doing, unless it be something for themselves — 
which is not worth doing. 

****** 

I never see the stars and the sky, which happens sometimes 
even in London, but I think lovingly of the night-watches on 
the Billy Baby, and wish I were at sea again. And the letters 
I get from Ned only increase my impatience at walking about 
these lanes of houses that hedge out God's world. I think, 
of all the letters with which a relentless Post-office deluges me, 
Ned's are the best. Here is one : 

" Sir, i now Write to inform you that the vessel and things 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 163 

are all right and that i am quite well and shall be glad when i 
get to sea again the weather has Been very Bad here this last 
fortnight. Sir i shall be much obliged if you will please to 
send me soom Money we shall want several Jobs done before 
we Go to sea a new topmast and some of our cooking pans 
Want New Bottoms in them i have got the standing rigging 
down and Repaired and up again and set up, and there was a 
man washed out of a boat here last week and i keep the things 
all well aired and most of the Bed Close are a shore getting 
washed so i must conclude." 

This last phrase especially delights me, being always repeat- 
ed, so I must conclude, as though that were a consequence of 
the bed-clothes being ashore and the man being washed out of 
the boat. How it all makes one long to be alone again with 
the sea and the sky and the books. 

****** 

I am getting very sick of the widow and the orphan. Those 
stage properties have, it seems to me, been vastly overdone in 
the desire to win reprobation for the conventional villain. 
Many preachers have taken up their cause against the villain, 
who is represented as enticing them into financial schemes and 
bringing them to ruin through the confidence they place in 
him. Now, I am ashamed to confess that I don't believe 
either widows or orphans to be anything like such fools, or so 
confiding as they look. My conviction is that when they take 
their " little all" (I use the sacred phrase) out of the dull 
Three per Cents, and put it into the Snowy Mountain Mines 
(Salted), which promise them thirty per cent, they are well 
aware that they are going in for a gamble, which involves a 
risk proportionate to the chance of gain. And it is nonsensi- 
cal to mark the misses and not the hits, to take no account of 
their winnings, and to represent them as victims whenever they 
lose. I have nothing, indeed , to say for the villain of the 
piece, and I am delighted when he is discovered and the most 
poetical justice is meted out to him. But what I claim is that 
the widow and the orphan, so far from being his victims, are 



164 FLOTSAM a:n^d jetsam. 

his abettors, and, indeed, if the matter be thoroughly viewed, 
his accomplices. They, indeed, first invented hira, for it is 
their craving for high interest which first put it into his mind 
to offer them great risks. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

If there were wanting anything to convince an outside ob- 
server of the lunacy of Englishmen — which is, of course, to say 
of those who are commonly taken for their lungs and their im- 
pudence to represent Englishmen — it should be their methods 
of judging the policy of such foreign countries as have a policy. 
They know well that if they have to do with a tailor or a 
carpet manufacturer, with a workman or an artist, with a coal- 
owner or a parson, the only sure ground is that which is gained 
by a knowledge of his own self-interest (misunderstood), and 
they would and do laugh at the notion of religion, justice, 
sentiment, or chance being taken at all into account. Yet, 
when they come to consider the actions of Foreign States- 
men, they declare and seem to , believe that sentiment, pas- 
sion, and chance are the only, or at least the most, important 
influences at work. The marriage of a Prince and a Princess 
is sufficient to cancel all the policy that has been laboriously 
worked out for centuries. The proposal of a toast by a mon- 
arch is treated as though it were a pledge of peace to the 
monarch toasted ; even the dining of a company of shopmen 
volunteers is held to be a pregnant international event. 
Meantime the permanent officials carry on their traditions re- 
gardless of all ; certain sordid unavowed agents whose names 
are never printed, and who really do the work, continue to 
borrow their way to the desired end, and one day the world 
wakes to find that " family alliances," toasts, banquets, and 
the rest mean no more than treaties. Having learned this, the 
world continues to argue as though they did mean something. 
****** 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 165 

What is the ideal man ? Nay, in what does the approach 
to the ideal man consist ? Are physical strength and beauty 
necessary ? Are the virtues necessary ? Is the development 
of faculties and of capabilities necessary ? And, if so, of 
what kind and in what degree are these to be ? Above all, of 
what kind ? For the notion of them differs in every clime, 
almost in every individual. The story of the painter, who ex- 
posed his ideal to the correction of the market-place, has been 
repeated over and over again any time since the world began, 
whenever any has dared the trial. Is there, then, no ideal 
man ? Yes, indeed, is there. It is enslirined in every man's 
breast, and is called God. 

Probably no man — unless, perhaps, it be Sir William 
Vernon Harcourt — really believes in his own superior clever- 
ness, but only in the inordinate folly of the rest of mankind. 
The best and wisest have confessed either directly or by im- 
plication the consciousness they have felt of being neither very 
wise nor very good ; but such men could but have seen that 
they were better and wiser than their fellows. Hence the dis- 
gust at the whole concern in which they have always ended. 
Perhaps it is still better to be a fool and not know it than to 
be a wiseacre and not be sure of it. 

H: •» * ^i: * He 

If it be the fact that some man has invented a means of 
toughening glass and porcelain so that they will not break, we 
are robbed of the greatest charm of the two most beautiful of 
all manufactured things. For the fragility of all that is beau- 
tiful is one of its chiefest delights. It addresses an irresisti- 
ble appeal to you to enjoy it keenly because it cannot be enjoyed 
for long. Who would care for a violet that could retain its 
freshness and sweetness for a year ? The bloom of the peach 
is delicious and grateful, because a touch destroys it. The 
charm of it is in this, that it is a fresh creation come to us out 
of the unseen, it is irresistible because you must take it quickly 



166 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

or never. If unhappily we could put our peaches or violets 
by, and take them out again as fresh as ever, they would not 
be worth regarding — for the very sufficient reason that we 
could regard them whenever we pleased. 



CHAPTER XL. 

I KNOW a bootmaker who makes excellent boots ; his great 
ambition is to cease to make them, to keep a shop, and to su- 
perintend workmen : I know a barber who, as soon as he was 
discovered to shave and cut hair well, declined to do so any 
longer, and took to selling scents and hair-brushes : I know 
the ideal butler and the ideal maid ; they have left the service 
they so thoroughly performed, and have taken a public-house 
together, where they are now in course of ruining themselves 
for the sake of a brewer. Yet all these people believe that 
they have " got on in life" as soon as they succeed in aban- 
doning their proper business, and taking up one they don't 
understand. This notion is, indeed, so generally received that 
it is acted upon universally in these clever modern times of 
ours. We have elevated into a principle the practice of select- 
ing people for one kind of work by testing them in another. 
A man is a great orator, therefore he is held to be a great 
statesman ; he is a successful partisan, therefore an admirable 
minister ; an able writer, therefore a good editor ; a good 
algebraist, therefore a good civil servant ; a winning advocate, 
therefore a good judge ; an arithmetician, therefore a soldier ; 
a theorist, therefore a practitioner. This might be well if the 
capacity for the work we want were not so often not merely not 
indicated, but actually excluded by the capacity for the work 
by which we judge. I have seen men compete at a greasy 
pole for the leg of mutton on its top, but I never heard the 
winner declared to be the best butcher. But then, it is true, 
this was a matter of no importance. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 167 

Somebody has said, " There are more women in the world 
than one." Not so. There is either one woman only, or 
there are none. In the same way somebody has said there are 
more worlds than one. That may be, but if Mercury, Jupiter, 
Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus are really inhabited, it is by 
people of entirely different construction from ourselves. We 
can't inhabit them, that is certain, wherefore for us there is 
only this one world possible — only this or none at present, 
whatever there may be in the future when our resolved atoms 
may be brought together in different form. So with that 
woman,, For as soon as you admitted her existence you thereby 
excluded all others, and saw them only *' as trees walking." 
You can breathe her atmosphere, live with her seasons, grow 
in her storm and sunshine, and feed upon her fruits. To do 
as much with another you must be a different creature. You 
know no more how or why it is than how or why you came 
upon this planet ; all you know is that she and it are all alone 
for you, and that for you no others are possible — for the 
present. 

****** 

I hate people who are open to conviction, no less than I de- 
test those who never sulk : the former only prove that they do 
not reason, the latter that they do not feel. Yet one hears 
people constantly claim to their credit that when offended 
they are " very angry for a short time, and then it is all over ;" 
as though it were a merit either to take offence where there is 
none, or to dismiss it shortly where there is. When one's fel- 
low is just there is nothing to forget or to remember, for so 
much is his duty ; but when he either goes beyond it and is 
generous, or falls below it and is unjust, neither the one nor the 
other can be, or should be, forgotten, nor can either fail of 
its effect upon those who appreciate what tlfey mean ; for they 
throw the whole relations out of gear, and introduce into them 
a new element which must affect them to the end. It is the 
blessing and the curse of life that good actions and bad do not 
die, but bear their fruit to all time. You cut my father's 



168 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

throat, or you rob me of a shilling, and I am not to forget it : 
on the contrary, I am to hang and imprison you, without 
anger. But you kill my trust in you — or, in other words, you 
kill yourself in me — and you rob me of my one cherished 
dream worth more than many shillings ; and then I am to cry 
out on you with big words, and there an end. 

****** 
If you are perfect I will trust you ; but as I know you are 
not perfect I can only trust you if you will lie to me. I have 
not confidence in you, but I am willing to affect a confidence, 
if you will ease my vanity by pretending thoroughly to deserve 
it. But beware, above all, that, you do not let me even sus- 
pect the truth. If once you admit to me that you have vio- 
lated my confidence, or that you have been so much as sorely 
tempted to violate it, if you are not ready to assure me that 
you would go to the stake rather than do that, then farewell to 
all confidence. What ? You say that the very fact that you 
allow yourself not to be perfect, the very fact that you, unsolic- 
ited and unforced, admit that you are not armed at all points, 
should be to me the greater, as it is the only proof of your 
sincerity and a guarantee that, so far as you can, you will re- 
deem your trust. What ? You say that your confession of 
fault is a proof of repentance and an earnest of amendment. 
Why, you are talking old Christianity. / talk modern logic. 
I tell you that your sincerity is nothing to me, that what I 
want is to be able to regard you, and to say that you look as if 
you were sincere. Be sure, then, that you lie to me. Be 
sure you whiten the outside of the sepulchre — then will I swear 
to all the world and myself that there are no dead men's bones 

inside. 

****** 

Certainly the most tiresome of all inflictions is to hear one 
of the modern lights hold forth against what they are pleased 
to call '* conventionalities." If you would believe them there 
is to be no law, and no rule of outward conduct, the expres- 
sion of that law ; but each creature is to exercise, perfect, and 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 169 

carry into practice his own rule for every occasion that may 
arise, quite as it may suit that creature. There are to be no 
general principles, no general rules, but only a general inven- 
tion of special rules. All which may be very well for the 
clever people who feel that they are not to be abashed by any 
combination. But then what are we fools to do ? We can't 
argue everything down from Genesis to the Day of Judgment 
in the twinkling of an eye, and to us it is of great comfort 
and of great assistance to be able to appeal to certain rules as 
determined by the wisdom of our ancestors to be applicable to 
certain cases. I have been taught that I am not to eat peas 
with a knife, and that I am not to lie. It may be that a de- 
bate and a division in Parliament, which is the final test of all 
things, might prove that I am to eat this particular pea with 
that particular knife, or that I am to tell that especial lie. 
But meantime I have got to act, and how am I to do it unless 
I act under the rule that I know ? Whenever I come across 
one who refuses the rule I look upon him wuth suspicion, for I 

know that one to be either a rebel or a genius. 

****** 

My love and I quarrelled. She was wrong, and I forgave 
her and loved her the more for it. My love and I quarrelled 
again. She was right, and I forswore her and loved her no 
longer. But we quarrelled yet again. Both of us were wrong, 
and I forgave her again and loved her better than ever. 



CHAPTER XLT. 

The truth. Yes, but which truth ? Yours or mine ? The 
truth in both of us is what we can manufacture out of our moral 
and intellectual machine when it works smoothly ; but each 
machine must be used as it is — that is to say, as it has come to 
be with the mendings and patchings of a lifetime. There arc 



170 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

parts of them that will work in like manner and produce like 
results ; but that is only because we have agreed beforehand 
upon all the pipes and cog-wheels. We both say that two and 
two make four, or fourteen as the case may be, but only by 
virtue of having agreed first upon the original notions, and then 
upon their subsequent treatment. But now take somewhat 
out of chaos — take the entirely new notion — and without 
agreement run it through any two machines, and you shall find 
it come out of each one monstrously unlike, both to its original 
self and to the product of the other. 

No man does good work when his success is assured. It is 
when he is struggling with the world, when all men revile him 
and persecute him, when he is still utterly rejected, that he is 
strongest. Nay, it is then, too, that he is most confident, for 
his confidence then only springs from the faith that is in him, 
and is not made up of any external contributions. He goes to 
war then of his own cost, and then only is he sure to fight well. 
If he achieves success, the only way by which he can escape 
from its fatal influence is to work for generations beyond the 
present, and so retain the doubt whether it is achieved. 
* * * * * * 

The denouement of a play, so far from relieving me, only 
diverts me. It always amounts in effect to a renunciation of 
the play itself. Through four acts and the better part of a fifth 
you show by examples, extreme but still possible, that men and 
women are foolish, passionate, unreasoning beings — a fact 
which, indeed, commends itself to all who knew them, and 
upon which the whole interest of your play hangs. And then 
at the end you suddenly turn round and recant this as a heresy 
and a lie ; for you seek to show by your denoue7nent that they 
have been reasonable all through, or at least have been working 
unreasonably to a reasonable end. So that you have been 
laughing at us through those four acts and a fraction, and you 
do want us to believe that we shall gather grapes of thorns and 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 171 

figs of thistles. In reply to which we may fairly laugh at you 
for your folly, and despise you for your dishonesty. Poetic 
justice, indeed ! Yes, in a poetic world, but not in this ; yes, 
in the course of generations (for are not the sins of the fathers 
visited on the children ?), but not now. There are many good 
plays, but in order to make them true or valuable as represen- 
tations of this tangled ridiculous knot of life, which is never 
cut by any denouement y they all want to lose their last act. 



One of the phrases which most amuses me is that of the 
** power of the press." As though the mere fact of putting 
nonsense into print gave it any more power with reasonable 
people than it had before, or as though it were necessary to put 
it into print in order to get it into the heads of unreasonable 
people. The only power the press has is that of making silly 
persons believe that it has power, until they discover the con- 
trary. This is, indeed, an operation which will take some of 
them a day or two, and during that day or two the press has 
their alliance — for what it is worth. But if, indeed, the press 
were honest — yes, if indeed. 



Two things does this strange world respect — ignorance and 
weakness. They are called, indeed, by the names of purity 
and innocence ; but in reality they are not these, neither are 
they like them. Indeed, the former exclude the latter. 
Purity implies the knowledge and rejection of impurity ; inno- 
cence the possession and the forbearance of nocent power. But 
clothed in these names it is the easier for me to put a premium 
on the qualities which I really desire to find in those who come 
into my life. The man or woman who is neither ignorant nor 
weak may comprehend me, and my littleness — may perhaps 
conquer me and my pretensions. Thus shall I be reduced to 
nothing. Then let me find in them nothing but ignorance and 
weakness : and let me praise them for purity and innocence. 



172 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

For this too, while it confirms them in their subjection, will 
add also to my renown with others. 

****** 
Against stupidity the gods fight in vain. Yet, perhaps, if 
they were not gods but men, they might not vainly struggle 
even against this. For if at the moment it is hard to with- 
stand the irritation which it is the privilege of stupidity to 
raise, by a single word opening a window into its own depths, 
yet when one comes to think of it there is something in it that 
appeals very powerfully to human nature. The wisest and 
ablest of men must, I should suppose, have a secret suspicion 
that they, too, are stupid in some matters ; and this, when 
they remember it, must make them look charitably on those 
who are stupid in others. Otherwise they would never have 
the patience to sit down and unravel so patiently the tangled 
skein of unreason, merely in order to demonstrate to others the 
conclusions which they have reached alone, and which others 
might therefore equally reach alone. It would be much shorter 
and more gratifying simply to break the heads of all the stupid 
people by a summary process. But then we should be badly 
off for what is called common sense, which is nothing else than 
stupidity highly developed. 

* * * * <it * 

It is amusing enough to see a man going about, as so many 
men do, declaring that he ** wants something to do," and 
can't get it. The real meaning of that is that he means to do 
nothing. For in this world there is much labor and few la- 
borers ; and those who really bear the burden have so much 
more than they can endure, that they are constantly on the 
look-out for men to whom they may delegate a part of their 
work. And they just as constantly find that of all things in 
the world it is the most difficult to discover anybody who will 
really take such a delegation, and conscientiously act in its 
spirit. When a man can readily be found honestly to groom 
my horse, to brush my clothes, or to clean my boots, then I 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 173 

shall believe that there are men ready and willing to undertake 
and to do honestly the work next above that in dignity, and 
consequentl}^ in difficulty. Until then I shall venture to think 
I understand how it is that one part of mankind complain that 
they can't get work done, the other part that they can't get 
work to do. It is that the former want men who will give 
themselves to the work, and the latter want the reward of the 
work to be given to them and yet not to give themselves to it. 
If we could only come to an agreement upon that it would solve 
most of the difficulties of this nether planet. 



I remember that what beat the National Guards in the siege 
of Paris was the marching and the carrying of knapsacks. 
They were both ready and willing to fight in battle ; but this 
dull, dreary plodding along roads like beasts of burden broke 
their constancy. Yet that is precisely the only valuable qual- 
ity. Anybody will fight well in the excitement of battle — for, 
indeed, physical courage is the most vulgar of qualities — any- 
body will speak well to a listening senate. But to toil through 
the miry, unregarded ways that lead to the field ; to sit down 
in the closet and do work that shows as yet no fruit — this chal- 
lenges a high spirit and a real faith hardly to be found. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

At the bottom of every man's mind there is the belief in the 
goodness of men. This alone explains how it is that we 
always feel surprise long before we arrive at* indignation, when 
we become aware that any one has done to us an unjust or un- 
generous act. We do all believe that men seek to observe the 
elementary laws ; which means that we do all believe in those 
elenientary laws ; which means that we believe in those laws 



174 FLOTSAM AlTD JETSAM. 

being embodied in any and every system of morality ; whicli 
means that any system is condemned that claims to be the only 
one embodying them. 

****** 

Funny creatures, indeed, are those men and women with 
whom we have to deal. They will say a thing — nay, they will 
swear it, invoking the worst penalty they have invented for 
falsehood in the shape of a future punishment — and straight- 
way they will go away and do the exact contrary thing, to their 
own stultification, falsification, and destruction though it be. 
They pretend to believe a something ; that is to say, they pre- 
tend to have given the whole of their faculties to its examina- 
tion, and to have reached a sure conclusion upon it — for this 
only is belief — and yet they are ready to be converted to a dia- 
metrically opposite belief at a moment's notice. Nay, them- 
selves — their own dear selves — they present to you as though 
they were something more than mere grains of sand furnished 
with motive muscles, walking between heaven and earth. 
They have their dignity, forsooth, which you are not to 
offend. And when it comes to the point you will find, such 
asses are they, that all this amounts to is that the offence is not 
to be inflicted in a particular manner or form ; that is to say, 
if you so manipulate it that they themselves do not understand 
you ; if you will but give them something on which they may 
fasten while all the world fastens on something else ; if you do 
but leave a loophole for their vanity to creep through, that will 
easily drag all that is behind after it. But and if you leave no 
vent for this, the earth itself may not hold the explosion that 
ensues. And what makes one so angry is that one knows that 
one is of them, and like them, and that one acts even as they 
do. This is indeed better. 



I don't wonder that every disgusted philosopher should 
always at last end in philology, for the confusion of tongues is 
fts great as it was in Babe], and with this differejice, that we 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM, 176 

don't know, or pretend we don't know, the confusion. In 
truth, nothing is ever understood as it is said. When I, A. 
B., make an assertion, I can and do make it only according to 
the limits of my capacity, and though it be the meanest and 
merest of platitudes, yet it requires the whole of my nature, acted 
upon by the whole of my life, to produce it in that precise 
manner in which I have conceived and do present it. You, C. 
D., may indeed repeat the same words with a form of assent, 
but unless you were I, or I you, there is no possibility of your 
accepting the assertion as I make it. The notions on which it 
depends have a different history in each of us, the conclusion it 
represents has been arrived at in a different manner and with a 
differing degree of conviction in each, and it occupies a 
different relative position among the aggregate of convictions 
which make up the spiritual person in each of us. We all feel 
this, even though we may deny it ; and the first thing we do 
with any assertion is to make the endeavor to eliminate from 
it the personality of him who makes it (that is to say, its very 
essence), and to bring it down to such bare proportions as may 
be clothed with our personality. Age is listened to under pro- 
test of senility, youth under protest of inexperience, the earnest 
under protest of enthusiasm, the careless under protest of in- 
difference. And so through the whole category, until we come 
to this, that the only thing a man can receive is the echo of 
himself, and even that the echo understands otherwise than he. 
****** 
The curse of novelty is that it devours itself and leaves us 
still hungry. The new thing does indeed give me a moment 
of pleasure, which is the moment before I have grasped it ; 
once attained, it instantly becomes usual, natural, old, tire- 
some, disgusting. " More worlds to conquei;" must he fatally 
seek who has conquered this ; yes, and then a new universe. 
To achieve success is only to reap disappointment in its worst 
form. Why, then, the truly practical course would be to reach 
at the impracticable. The impossible ideal that you set up 
shall never be yours ; but you shall but the more certainly ap- 



176 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

proach it, yes, and bring others toward it. You shall, in- 
deed, achieve in this minor successes and reap minor disap- 
pointments as you make them good ; but your main stake is 
safe ; and when the end comes you have not spent your for- 
tune, but may leave it a legacy to the world at large. In fine 
the greatest satisfaction is derived from seeking that you shall 
never find, and sowing that you shall not reap. This is in- 
sane, but it is true. 

****** 

" The bramble coveted the power which the vine, olive, and 
fig-tree refused. The worst and basest of men are ambitious 
of the highest places, which the best and wisest reject. ' ' So 
says Algernon Sidney, and to this day it is true. But it is 
only true because the men who covet the highest places do not 
intend to fill them, but only to reap the rewards of them. The 
burden he takes upon himself who assumes to instruct or lead 
his fellows is so tremendous that, if he means to bear it, no re- 
ward of personal power or profit can be tempting. And, in 
fact, the real instruction and leadership of men always has been 
assumed by those who have derived neither honor nor profit 
from it. But to the titular leadership both are attached, and 
therefore is it that the worst and the basest seek them. It is 
what is called the division of labor, that the soldier should fall 
unregarded in the trench and the general march gloriously in 
over his body. 

****** 

Know yourself. Yes, but how ? You can only judge 
yourself hy yourself — that is to say, you can only estimate 
what you are by what you are. It is like telling a pair of 
scales to weigh themselves. Yet the attempt to do it we all 
make, and all find in it the greatest amusement, even if not a 
great advantage. And it is the more amusmg because it al- 
ways takes this form — ' ' If I were somebody else what should 
I think of myself?" The answer, nevertheless, always does 
depend upon what you are ; and the proof is that what you 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 177 

thouglit of yourself, your aims, and your conduct in a given 
case a year ago is quite different from what you think of them 
now with reference to the same case. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

There is no feeling, I think, so painful as this — that one is 
about to be ungrateful. You know that that man or woman has 
been good to you, and you see that you are about to do a 
thing, or a series of things, which must amount to asserting 
that you owe no thanks for the good, and are under no obliga- 
tion to return it. You may make any excuse you like to your- 
self ; you may say that the chain by which you are thus bound 
galls you ; that you are worn out by it ; that after all, properly 
viewed, it is no chain at all. All this avails nothing, for you 
know better, and it is always with a secret pang that at last you 
go and do as other men do. For you, too, believe that you 
are not as other men are, and you cannot forgive yourself for 
so acting as they act, while you remember it. But, then, you 
can forget it, and since you alone know this secret history 
there is no harm done. For in all your confessions that which 
you will never confess is the act which you yourself blame. 
****** 

We know well that in this world nothing grows up as it is 
planted, and that the best laid schemes, if they involve any- 
thing more than the most simple and immediate object, do 
produce quite different results from those they were intended 
to bring about. Accident, we say, which is but another name 
for our own ignorance or carelessness. At any rate we might 
learn from the universal experience, that it is never to be ex- 
pected that the present as we know it will come out in the 
future as we order it. If it does so come out, it is not 
because there has been no error in the calculation, but because 



178 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

the errors have compensated each other. We can't tell what 
to-morrow shall bring forth, and yet — which is my complaint — 
we all assume to act to-day as though we could. This we call 
foresight. To-day, indeed, is here, this moment is ours ; 
whatever the rest my be. Suppose, now, we were to decide to 
live in it, and leave trying to live in the next until the next 
comes. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

There is no murderer so ruthless and implacable as your able 
editor. He is the agent of all the swindles and all the hy- 
pocrisies, and he will emasculate, maim, destroy, and drag with 
his corkscrew pen the very soul out of all you shall write for 
him, who have given your whole soul and being to that writ- 
ing. For his first notion is to serve the commercial devil who 
has taken possession of the swept and garnished house ; he is a 
huckster who has set up a stall wherewith to make a profit. 
He calls himself prince, society, minister, pontiff, people, and 
he lives by the adulteration of your pure wares — which is com- 
petition. This, indeed, were little if you could edit yourself ; 
but you cannot, and to the end of time you shall be called 
upon to hand over your offspring to be defaced, unless you 
will see it strangled at its birth. You have a message from 
God, and the Devil alone can publish it. 

* * * * * * 

It is a fearful thing to think how soon one becomes accus- 
tomed to everything, even to things that appeared but a while 
ago the most monstrous, impossible, and unendurable. The 
loss of your fortune, of your beliefs, of your affections, each 
one of which now seems to you to be eternally bound up with 
the secret fibres of your very existence — this will not bring you 
to an end of yourself. Far from it. Each one of such capital 
losses amounts, after all, as you may see on every hand, to 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 119 

nothing more than the expenditure of a certain varying amount 
of time in recovering from it. Never fear hut that you will 
recover. Yet a day or two, or a month, or a year or two, and 
these things shall be to you as though you had never known 
them. Which also is another of the Creator's mercies ; for it 
is a mercy that the value of the good we have should be so ex- 
travagantly enhanced in our appreciation while we possess it, 
and so extravagantly depreciated when we possess it no longer. 
As we go on losing one thing and gaining another we can 
always show a profit on our balance-sheet, since what we have, 
thus becomes of more value than what we have lost. 

TV V ^ n^ T^ T* 

The most damnable of all the precepts of wordly wisdom is 
that which teaches us to accept the accomplished fact. His- 
tory, from which we learn all we know of God and man, 
teaches, indeed, and in the abstract we will admit, that all good 
work that has ever been done in the world has been done in re- 
siotance and repudiation of the established fact. Yet now we 
are to believe, even to avow, that because a seed among the 
many planted has germinated, taken root, and come to flourish 
as a green bay-tree, we are not to meddle with it though it be 
the upas itself. Nevertheless, all schools of thinkers profess to 
accept this : those who would change equally with those who 
would retain. Thus is violence made lawful, might accepted 
for right, and the hazard of success brought to be the test of 
truth. 



The most irritating people alive are what I call the money- 
changers. They have no wares of their own to sell, neither do 
they seek to buy the wares of others. Bu^ they set up a stall 
in the Temple, where they will give you for your piece of gold 
many pieces of silver, or vice versdj and make a profit on the 
manipulation of the agio. At their best they are useless to 
whomsoever will deal with them, for they give but the same 
purchasing power back for that you offer, even if it be under a 



180 Flotsam akb Jetsam. 

different symbol ; and, in fact, they always sweat the symbol 
and leave you poorer, though you may not know it. You 
bring a fact or an idea to such a one ; he takes it and returns 
it to you in small change. He produces no ideas of his own, 
nor is he even a carrier of those that others have produced ; 
for he deals only in words, which are the currency of spiritual 
things. Rather than be plagued with such parasites, it were, 
perhaps, better to leave words altogether, and sink to the level 
of the stars, which have no speech nor language, though their 
voice is heard among them. 

:{: « 4: * ^ 4c 

Is it pure nonsense to say that I can make the bramble an 
orange-tree by the simple process of tying oranges to its 
branches ? Will you presume to say that you will likewise 
look at the leaves, that you will smell it, that you will take and 
put it in your garden, and see whether next year also it will 
give you a crop of like fruit ? Go to, you are talking against 
Education, which is nothing else than this. Do you, then, 
not know that the tree itself is nothing ; that to regard its 
roots, twigs, leaves, and sap, and to estimate its vigor, or ask 
what fruit it will bear when left to itself, is an impertinence ? 
There are the oranges, and if you have what you declare to be 
a real orange-tree, I will competitively count the oranges on 
both, and prove that mine is the better of the two. You know 
that we require simple methods in this world, and what can be 
more simple than that ? 

H« 4: He 4: ^ Hi 

Algernon Sidney says that no man can think that to be true 
which he knows to be false. It would be more to the purpose 
to say that no man can know that to be false which he thinks 
to be true. For we so seldom know anything, and so com- 
monly " think" everything — which means pretending to know 
without knowing — that this is the state mainly to be consid- 
ered. I thmk that the sun shines, or that ten thousand angels 
can dance on the point of a needle. But now^ if I want to 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAlf. 181 

know whether this be so or not, I must leave thinking and treat 
the subject by a very different method of investigation, where- 
of tlie first condition is that 1 come to it with no previous bias. 
If I can succeed in seeing my angels dance on ray needle, then 
I know the fact ; if I go out at noonday and cannot see the 
sun shining, then I know either that he does not shine, or that 
I cannot know whether he does ; and in both cases I arrive 
at my certain conclusion only by giving up my uncertain 
thinking. If you want to know you must not think, and if 
you will think you shall not know. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

Why is it that we can never really and thoroughly despise 
any but of our own age, occupation, sex,, standing, and ac- 
quaintance, and that we do really and thoroughly despise most 
of those ? Can it be that it is because we know those alone at 
all thoroughly, and that this again is because they alone are 
sufficiently like unto ourselves to enable us to know them 
thoroughly ? There may possibly be somewhat of this in the 
matter. A vounsjer or an older than us, one of a different oc- 
cupation or sex, of a higher or lower position, is equally beyond 
and outside our view. In estimating such a one we know that 
our estimate cannot be sure, and we make, for this, allowances 
of which we equally know that they cannot be of a surety just 
and no more ; and we, therefore, necessarily halt and hesitate 
in adopting sure and decided conclusions as to their object. 
But give us one of ourselves, placed in the same position, and 
moved, as we know, by the same springs-^then we will read- 
ily judge him or her with precision, for we fall back upon 
ourselves in case of doubt ; and so we end for these in con- 
tempt, as for the others we end in confession of ignorance. 
It seems hard that we should be unable to find at last any 



182 FLOTSAM AKi) JETSAM. 

other standard than ourselves, yet if it be humiliating it is also 
consoling : for if all mankind be to us nothing or as bad as 
ourselves, it is also nothing or as good as ourselves. Which 
also shows one of the advantages — to put it in a profit and loss 
way — of living up to a high ideal, that we thereby raise all of 
mankind that we can pretend to know up to the same ideal. 
And this is charity, so far as it can be carried out, to believe 
of others that they are as good as we may be, rather than to 
think them as bad as we can be. 



What a fatal thing is this, that we seem to be absolutely in- 
capable of appreciating anything in this world without at the 
same time wishing to destroy it ; nay, that this is the only 
way in which we can express our admiration. Cleopatra 
typified this correctly when she melted her most precious pearl 
in the acid and drank it, to her own discomfort. We signify 
that music has moved us by repeating it even upon the barrel- 
organ, that a scent has charmed us by dissipating it, that a 
flower has delighted us by plucking it to death and corruption, 
that an idea has found and swayed us by vulgarizing it even to 
a proverb, that a woman has appeared to us lovable by loving 
her. And in each and every case the pity of it is that nothing 
will satisfy us but the destruction of the very element in the 
thing which has captured us. To enjoy is to sink, burn, and 
destroy, we say, and without this no enjoyment. Nay we can 
go so far as to deny any excellence that we cannot thus anni- 
hilate and bring to an end. For we are, forsooth, practical, 
and will admit nothing out of which we can make no profit 
real or supposed. " What care I how fair she be, so she be 
not fair forme," we say and repeat in every possible form. 
For me there is no pearl I may not dissolve, no scent I may 
not scatter, no music I cannot whistle, no flower I may not 
crush, no woman I may not love. This is a damnable notion, 
yet it is twisted into the very fibres of all human nature. 

^ ^ ^ S|C ^ ^ 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 18H 

"The wearer knows where the shoe pinches." But if we 
were really reasonable creatures, why should everybody else 
not also know ? I tell you that here is the place where the 
pinch is ; I put my finger upon it. But yet you will not 
believe me. You will, indeed, receive what I assert if it 
agrees with the notion you have formed beforehand, but not 
otherwise ; which is to say that you will believe yourself a 
little more if I corroborate you, but none the less if I do not 
or if I deny you. For the lame man a flight of stairs is a 
mountain, and you will never persuade him that it is not as 
high as the Etna, which you and Mr. Gladstone have ascended 
with infinite difficulty. 

****** 
If I had a son I would train him to ride, to sail the seas, to 
fast, to think, to speak the truth, and to play tennis ; to 
make love to women, and to love one. To use tact decently 
and to earn a livlihood I should hope he would learn by him- 
self. And I trust that Providence will not deal so ill by me as 
to give me a son who will either reach perfection or fall below 
mediocrity in any one of these matters. For in the former 
case he would certainly either be stoned or made a peer by his 
outraged fellow-citizens, while in the latter he would earn my 
contempt ; so that in either case I, his aged father, should 
be left without solace in ray declining years. What frightens 
me is not so much the prospect of his being below the average 
in any one of the matters that I hold to be important, as the 
extreme facility there is for rising above it to that relative per- 
fection which is so fatal. Take tennis, for instance. I have 
not been trying to play it for years without becoming aware 
that it requires obstinate labor, unflagging attention, full sym- 
pathy with your neighbor (who, as ever, is your adversary), 
and the power of instantly addressing all the powers of the 
mind to the sudden new thing — in fact, that it demands pre- 
cisely the same qualities which go to make a great legislator, 
soldier, prophet, or street-preacher. Yet those who most ex- 
cel in it are creatures of very ordinary ill- baked clay, and I 



184 FLOTSAM AITD JETSAM. 

believe the greatest fool I know could in his own court give 
me thirty and a bisque and beat me easily. I could, perhaps, 
give him equal odds with the same result in others of these 
matters, and that would equally disconcert and exercise him, 
for from the tennis point of view / am the greatest fool he 
knows. Which shows that it is easy for well-nigh anybody to 
attain relative excellence in well-nigh everything, which, again, 
must lead each of us who have not attained it in any, to be 
thankful for these and all other mercies. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

On Board the Billy Baby, 

FiSHERGATE, 11th Juue. 

Ah ! this is real pleasure to be once more on the Billy 
Baby, master of oneself and of all around one. A little king- 
dom, indeed, which requires care lest one should knock one's 
head or one's shins against its strait boundaries, one in which 
a tall man or a fat man might find himself ill at ease — but all 
my own, and therefore to me delightful beyond all others. 
Merely to be here is a pleasure to me, and one which has this 
inestimable and quite exceptional advantage, that I can enjoy it 
now without having to wait till it has faded into the past, and 
therefrom received that nameless charm attaching to all that 
1 shall never have or all that I have no longer. We have 
scrubbed our bottom, got a new storm-jib and topmast (the 
late defunct being sprung, and therefore condemned), Ned 
has grappled with the science of navigation during the win- 
ter so far as to learn to do a " day's work," and altogether 
we are as handsome as paint and varnish can make us. 
Bill, indeed, the faithful and perspiring Bill, has gone to 
Iceland, and Tom is fishing somewhere in the North Sea, 
which is a source of deep sorrow to me ; but we have shipped 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 185 

two new hands to make up our ship's complement of four, and 
the only present trouble is that it has come on to blow three 
parts of a gale of wind from the westward, which, of course, 
is precisely the one point of the compass to which I wish to 
go. But then, how pleasant to hear the wind blustering and 
to know that one is in a safe snug place ! 

****** 

12th Juno. 
I have come to trouble already. Phil, my new butler, 
lady's-maid, valet, cook, and footman — (vice Bill, promoted 
to Iceland) — has been acting according to his lights. I 
brought down with me a supply of that especial coffee which 
is my only claim to distinction. It was newly-roasted, and I 
told him to grind as much as he wanted from time to time. 
Fancy, then, my horror at finding that he had spent the after- 
noon in grinding the whole of it, thereby violating one of the 
fundamental principles of coffee-making. Also, he has peeled 
the new potatoes, washed the keys of the piano, and destroyed 
my boots by putting them before the fire to dry till a cinder 
fell through their " uppers." Phil clearly has never set him- 
self to consider the original principles of things. In addition 
to which, it is still blowing a gale of wind, and I can't get out. 
****** 

From all time men have professed to be philosophers with- 
out being scientific, to love knowledge without having it, to 
seek the final causes of things without paying heed to the 
things themselves, to reason on facts without possessing them ; 
and when Comte first laid it down as the essential principle of 
his new Positive Philosophy that no reality can be established 
by reason alone, he was nearly starved to death for his pre- 
sumption. His system, indeed, demands so much hard work, 
even to comprehend it, that if once it were generally accepted 
we should have to admit the impossibility of there being more 
than a very few philosophers in the world, or at least the im- 
possibility of our all being philosophers Yf]xo j^re most of us 



186 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

very ignorant — which is revolting. Comte is consequently 
clearly wrong, and I only await a successful voyage by a caj)- 
tain who shall go to sea provided with much navigation and no 
seamanship, to conclude that he is an impertinent babbler. 



The living prophet is always as sure to be stoned as the dead 

prophet is to be worshipped. Unless, indeed, like Galileo, he 

will solemnly recant his prophecy, and leave men to find out 

with time that his recantation was a lie which he knew to be a 

lie. So true is this, that whenever I see a man stoned I am 

always inclined to believe that he is a prophet without further 

evidence. Then comes the question : is it worth while to be 

stoned in this life, in order, if it be so, that one may look down 

from the next and find oneself libellously stuck up in the street 

as a statue and one's name vulgarized into every class-book ? 

Fontenelle thought not. '' He that has his hand full of 

truths," said he, ''should close it fast." Fontenelle was 

right in his generation. You may not say the new and true 

thing, but any man may say either the new thing that is not true 

or the true thing that is not new. Surely that is enough for 

glory. 

****** 

The most hateful of all the Philistines who believe and 
would have us believe that the Promised Land is theirs and not 
ours, because forsooth they were born and live in it and have 
the present possession of its fruits, is your truly practical man. 
He blasphemes " vain theories" because they give no present 
practical results, not seeing and, indeed, not knowing that all 
present practical results have been reached by and through 
theories which appeared to be, when they were first conceived, 
equally unfruitful with those he denounces and despises. He 
would have laughed, even though he live by farming or on the 
rents of farmers, at Abel when he first conceived the theory 
that corn could be reproduced by putting a portion of it into 
the earth ; he will laugh to this day at Archimedes and Apol- 



FLOTSAM AlTD JETSAM. 187 

loniiis theorizing on conic sections, even though his merchan- 
dise or his life has been saved by an observation of longitude. 
He is an ass. 

Yet this is not to say that the practical man has not his uses. 
On the contrary, he is very valuable, though otherwise than as 
he thinks — namely, in discovering the errors of the practice in 
which he believes, caused by divergence from the theory in 
which he does not believe. When the observation has been 
taken and worked out, showing exactly where the ship is and 
that she is running her true course, he shall be put in the 
chains with the lead or in the bows as a look-out, and shall 
discover that in spite of the perfection of the method of calcu- 
lation she is running into land which, according to that calcu- 
lation, should be leagues away. Having done this he will cry 
out upon the theory — still not seeing that it was the practice 
which was in fault. 



CHAPTER XLVn. 

• On Board the Billy Babt, 

Selsea Bill, 19th June. 
It is a great luxury to love an ugly woman, because every 
time you see or hear of her ugliness you are reminded of that 
superior perception which to you alone of all men has been 
given of knowing that she is not ugly ; in fact, you love her as 
most men love a woman, because you think you know her 
better than others. But there is, perhaps, even a greater lux- 
ury than this — which is to love a woman you don't know, that 
is to say one whom you see but with whom you are not ac- 
quainted. For this also rests upon the notion that you do 
know her, that you have been able to divine her from that you 
have seen of her, and this, being apparently even more diffi- 
cult than to divine one with whom you are acquainted, is also 
ynore flattering to you. It is not only in fairy tales that men 



188 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

do this kind of thing. I, who write this, love desperately a 
woman with whom I have never spoken, and who is not even 
aware of my existence. Her face, not regularly beautiful, her 
figure marked by what others would think striking defects, 
her smile, her wealth of gesture, and the lighting up of her 
eye, have been to me as arrow-headed inscriptions, which I 
alone can read and in which I read all that which I would have 
created for myself. I am warranted, therefore, in saying that 
I love her. But God forbid I should ever know her, for I 
might have to demolish all my card-castles, unlearn my arrow- 
heads, and be forced, perhaps, to read in their place some very 
ordinary inscriptions in very common characters on very perish- 
able tablets. And I would not be robbed of my fairy-tale in 
this world, which has so few. 



Co WES, 20th June. 
*' Great caution," say the sailing directions, *' is requisite 
not to be caught in the Looe by night, neither should a sailing 
vessel attempt it with an adverse tide ;" but to be a little " ac- 
quainted" is better than many sailing directions, and if you 
can't get a fair tide and daylight too, you may perhaps manage 
with the tide alone. After thrashing up to windward all day, 
and feeling the strong spring flood beginning to make, I ran 
into the Park, and there anchored just as it got dark, thinking 
to stop a tide and go through with the first light with the last 
half of the ebb. It was a beautiful night, with every appear- 
ance of fine weather, and I turned in till the morning should 
come. But at one o'clock Ned called me with the news that 
the wind had backed to W.S.W., with thick rain, and that it 
"looked like dirt." So, indeed, it did, and, moreover, the 
glass had fallen considerably. I thought, therefore, that I had 
best get out of that and see if I couldn't blunder through the 
darkness, which was as yet unredeemed. And now came the 
Nemesis of a piece of carelessness of which, seduced by the 
weather (alas ! for the instability of women and weather), I 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 189 

had been guilty in not getting a bearing of the Mixon, as I 
might have done before dark ; the result of which was that I 
had only the Owers Light, half obscured by the rain, to work 
by. In the dilemma I stood boldly in toward the Mixon 
under the protection of my lead, and by then I struck two 
fathoms, made the beacon within a quarter of a mile. I then 
gave her a cast off, and judging my distance, after a while, 
having then, of course, lost the Mixon again and the liglit too, 
made a couple of short boards, and went for the Pullar Buoy, 
which I had the luck almost to run into before we saw it. 
Thenceforth our business was, of course, easy enough, and we 
were not long in finding ourselves at anchor here. Moral : 
Always take every bearing you can get. 

I once knew one of the greatest heiresses in London who 
used to sing with great feeling a ballad which turned entirely 
upon the difficulty some Scotchman had (an especial Scotch- 
man must he have been) in making a crown into a pound. This, 
with other things, has led me to ask w^hether to have great 
riches is after all the ideal state, even of those who are work- 
ing the hardest for them or who possess them most completely 
— nay, whether it is the ideal state of any man or woman. 
And it seems to me that the negative is proved by this sole 
fact, that the poetry — or, in other words, the sense of that 
ideal — which we all have in us can find no food in riches, nor 
even in that which riches can buy. The man of ten thousand 
a year is no poetic hero, unless by ingenuity he be made poor 
in spite of his ten thousands ; his houses, his furniture, his 
horses, his purple and fine linen will none of them provoke a 
song ; and if he wants one, he must go to such common and 
inferior states of life as he will find among the creatures he 
possesses in fee — to shepherds and sailors, *to the afflicted, the 
disappointed, tlie poor ; to all those whose lot has been cast in 
those crooked, unhappy ways which he knows not unless by 
hearsay. Yet to hear and to think he can comprehend the 
poetry that fastens upon them is still even his highest enjoy- 



190 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

ment. So that when we have worked all the day for money^ 
ease, security, and troops of friends, the best we can get out 
of them is the ability to take refuge with poverty, hardship, 
danger, and solitude. This is human nature. 



CHAPTER XLYIII. 

The eternal history of this world is well told in the K'eapoli- 
tan tale of the priest who went to dine with a fellow padre, as 
great a hon vivant as himself. The two ate and drank, till he 
who was invited scarcely felt able to walk back to his domicile. 
As he was waddling painfully along a beggar addressed him, 
saying, in piteous accents, " For the love of the Holy Virgin, 
give me something — I am dying of hunger !" *' Dying of 
hunger !" exclaimed the overladen monk ; ** dying of hunger ! 
Happy man ! I am bursting with having eaten too much. 
Thank God, and go thy ways." 

Now, if the two monks had invited the beggar to dine with 

them, all three would have been better off. But there is still 

wanting the moralist or the legislator capable of persuading one 

man not to eat too much, in order that another may eat enough. 

****** 

It is strange enough that while we are always doing what we 
can to conceal ourselves from our fellows, we are also always 
complaining that they do not know us. Yet all the time the real 
fact is that we are trying to cheat them into knowing the best 
part of us only, and that they, seeing through the deception, 
avert their eyes from the good we would present, and imagine 
with exaggeration the evil we would conceal. And if one 
would really be honest, he commonly can think of no other 
course than that of obtruding the evil and concealing the good 
— a kind of proceeding which is not without example, though 
indeed it is rare. But if any should be so ill-advised as to 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 191 

present himself as he is, and should give to the world that 
strange mixture of good and evil which each of us knows him- 
self to be — if any should do this, he would be disbelieved as a 
liar, and also scouted as a hypocrite. No man, it would at 
once be said, was ever either so bad or so good as this. And 
so we all go on deceiving others, and at last ourselves, into the 
belief that we live in a world composed of creatures entirely 
different from those which really inhabit it. This is the result 
of that faculty of introspection which we are told alone dis- 
tinguishes us from the brutes. 

I|C l|C l|C 3|C 9|( 3|( 

The man who said he could prove anything by figures only 
asserted that he and his fellows were a set of fools. And it is 
really irritating to see how many are utterly unaware of the 
difference between the precision of a statement and its cer- 
tainty. A " circumstantial account," a " detailed statement," 
or a " complete exemplification," is held to be true in its nat- 
ure, because it is circumstantial, detailed, or complete. Yet a 
precise statement may be as certainly false as a vague one may 
be certainly true. When I say " the moon is made of green 
cheese," that is thoroughly precise, but also thoroughly false, 
and when I say " all men must die," that is thoroughly un- 
precise but as thoroughly certain. And it follows that, state- 
ment for statement, the second is worth more than the first. 
But now if I say " the moon must die," that is both unprccise 
and uncertain, and therefore a purely idle assertion. Yet this 
is the character of ninety nine out of every hundred assertions 
that are made verbally and in print. 

Just as anybody can get anything he wan^s except the one 
only thing he really does want, or do anything he pleases ex- 
cept the one only thing he really desires to do, so anybody can 
say anything except the one only thing he wishes to say. Put 
a man before the maid he courts, let him be sincere as the 
morning light, and then for the first time he shall hesitate, 



192 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

stammer, be cold and unimpressive, and leave her at last with 
the conviction, necessarily formed from his conduct, that he is 
a blunderer or a liar, or both. And yet if he is acting a part, 
how glibly and admirably it all runs ! I think no man was 
every deeply moved, and deeply anxious to communicate his 
emotion, but must have thought with humiliation, as I have 
done, of the Gymnase, where the right words adequate to the 
situation flow so surely and so truly — or rather, as it would 
seem from all experience, so untruly. It is a consolation to 
me to remember that I have seen one of the greatest of actors 
as much at fault as ever I was myself, when he was set to speak 
his own feelings in a simple matter. For in this also it is true, 
as in the rest, that we can act another man, but never ourselves. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

It seems to me often that it is an immense impertinence to 
utter one's thoughts. For, after all, they are and can be only 
such thoughts as all men have, who only differ from the speaker 
and the writer in that they do not utter them. But then I 
console myself with this reflection, that the very utterance 
forces one to look one's thought in the face, to ascertain it 
more or less, and to make out to some extent what it really is. 
In fact, it is the having done this which alone gives a thought 
any proper existence. For although we all of us when we look 
up into our sky are dimly aware of great flights of them that 
come and go, passing for a moment and disappearing at once, 
there are but few who will take the trouble to lay snares for 
any one of them, to catch it, look at it, hear it sing for a 
moment, and then set it free again. And when a rare fowler 
comes and shows us his bird, that he has caught and caged so 
well that all men to all time may delight in it, a great part of 
our delight arises from the recognition of the fact that it is our 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 193 

bird also that we might have caught had we taken the same 

trouble. 

****** 

They are admirable persons indeed who can chirrup all day 
and never tire of it, or ever have any uncomfortable suspicion 
that that is not a sufficient occupation and end of their exist- 
ence. For, doubtless, the great object of life is to satisfy one's 
own self with it, and, this being so, they are the wisest who 
can effect it at the least expenditure of trouble. But how 
much are they to be envied who can not only satisfy themselves 
with their own chirruping, but also be satisfied with the chirrup- 
ing of others ! — who never feel the longing to hear other 
sounds than this, or even rather than this to hear no sound at 
all. " The grasshopper shall be a burden," said the preacher, 
but if you can arrive at such a blessed state as not to feel the 
weariness and weight of that burden, nothing need trouble you. 
****** 

Well, now, why am I to obey your laws ? You will not say 
because you have courts and policemen, and, if need be, war 
and armies to enforce them ; for if force is your only sanction 
fraud will be my just defence : you cannot say because you 
have chosen to make those laws, knowing them best for us all, 
but especially for me ; for that is the very point at which we 
are fighting. No, at last you must say that it is because the 
laws I am to obey are the expression of the Law which is in- 
scribed in the ineffaceable records of the universe itself, where 
all men may read it, and see that you have but declared and not 
made it. And if it be so I have no answer to you. But now 
if the Law of God and of Nature be found at variance with the 
laws, so called, by which you profess to declare it, I who re- 
ject them am no law-breaker, but only you who assert them. 



194 fLUTbAM A^U JETSAM. 



CHAPTER L. 



This instrument of language of which we are so proud has 
been the especial care of mankind since the world began. 
Pulled to pieces many times, and immediately reconstructed 
electrically out of the fragments ; added to, and thereby, as 
is thought, improved by every generation, and almost by every 
man who uses it ; modelled upon various patterns, yet always 
with the same object of making it a perfect vehicle for the 
transmission of every thought the human mind can conceive, 
it should be now, if ever it is to be, near to accomplishing that 
purpose. Yet with all its appliances, it is still very rarely ca- 
pable of more than the presentation of those purely elementary 
ideas, the necessity of imparting which first gave it birth. 
Beyond this it is always vague and uncertain, and usually quite 
inoperative. ' ' I love you — I hate you — yes — no — come — go, ' ' 
are nearly the limits of any common vocabulary, and he who 
goes beyond this does but launch a word- cloud which looks 
differently from every different man's position who views it, 
and which differs in fact with every breath of wind. Well, 
then, here is my dog, who, though a very imperfect linguist, 
understands these elementary assertions as well as any of us. 
For she pays attention, which most of us never do to our fel- 
lows, and I see that she reads the tones of my voice, to this 
extent, as plainly as any professor of English could read my 
words. Wherefore I say that in fact she understands what I 
say as well as the professor, since, try as I will, I can say no 
more to him than I can to her. For she, too, can and does 
measure very justly the degree of emphasis I put into each ex- 
pression, and can and does judge therefrom how far I am sin- 
cere in it. For which, with other reasons, I judge that it 
matters less what we say than how we say it. And this brings 
me to my point, almost as tardily as Mr. Gladstone — which 
point is this, that of all the gifts Providence can bestow there 
is none anything like so valuable as a good speaking voice, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 196 

that is to say a sympathetic voice. Power of conception, 
depth of learning, force and aptitude of expression, are nothing 
in comparison with the faculty of uttering words in such a 
way as that the sound of them is caressing to all ears. The 
sense of them matters nothing in comparison with this. 



If you would know a man you must do business with him ; 
if you would know a woman you must make love to her. Thus 
alone can you discover the evil and the good that is in them, 
for thus alone do you meet them on the only ground to which 
they attach any importance. The worst part of the nature of 
each, now, is shown certainly and without the possibility of con- 
cealment, self now rises up in arms and asserts its supremacy 
over all else ; and if, in spite of all, you find a man who is 
generous in business or a woman who is faithful in love, set 
them as jewels in your heart of hearts, for they are rare indeed. 



CHAPTER LI. 

On Board the Billy Baby, 

25th July. 

That anarchical order of French ideas, such as " all opinions 
are free," " all tastes are in nature," and the rest, are to me 
utterly detestable. I so little admit all opinions that I deny 
that there can be so many as two. There may, indeed, be two 
or many degrees of knowledge, two or many degrees of atten- 
tion ; but with due knowledge and due attention there can 
only be one conclusion. As for those who have not due 
knowledge of the matter or hnve not given due attention to it, 
they have no right to be heard at all upon it, and it is not true 
that they are entitled to their opinion. All they are entitled 
to is compassion and instruction. But then this condemns 



196 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

well-nigh all mankind to silence. Why, yes, of course, have 
you not yet discovered that that is their proper vocation ? 

2jC 5jC ^ Hi H* ^ 

The man who can pass a veterinary examination is king of 
all men. What does it matter to him that others have money, 
names, baubles without end, if they have not the sound body 
which he feels himself ? He would not change with one of 
them. He feels vigor and readiness in every part of him. 
There is nothing he would not undertake — few, if any, things 
in which he would not succeed ; he rejoices as a giant to run 
his race. With this kind of bounding exuberant health life is 
worth having with all its miseries, without it life is a burden 
with all its delights. 

sjc ^ H^ v? •1^ ^ 

Southampton, July 26th. 
These human companions of ours on the earth never look so 
intensely vulgar and abominable as when they put on their 
holiday attire. Here is this town, which is endurable enough, 
and which I have seen look more beautiful than Venice, in that 
delicious moment when the sun has just set, and has left to all 
things the so precious and so short a legacy of rich white light 
which brings all out in deep strong coloring — here it is decked 
with flags, hideous with blatant bands, peopled no longer with 
decent work-day people, respectable with evidence of labor, 
and smug citizens hurrying to effect a job, but with hideous at- 
tempts at fine feathers w^hich would make the angels weep. 
And all this disfigurement takes place because, forsooth, the 
town and the people have determined to appear at their best, 
and have put on their finery to do honor to their regatta. 
Poor creatures, they are no worse in this than the rest of us. 
Like the rest of us they are utterly unaware, when it comes to 
the point, that all they have at all admirable about them is pre- 
cisely that which they most seek to forget and to conceal. It 
takes a lifetime to learn not to be ridiculous, in anything 
beyond the earning one's bread by the sweat of the brow, and 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 197 

there are few indeed of whatever degree who are not at once 
hidicroiis and odious when they set out with malice prepense to 
be splendid. 

****** 

I thank God I have never acted purely upon reason but once, 
which once has endowed me with nevcr-dyinsj repentance ; 
neither have I many times attained to the height of laying 
down a principle and following it out consistently, for which, 
however, I do not thank God. On the contrary, I am aware, 
when I look back over that waste of blunders and disappoint- 
ments which one calls one's life, that I could not give a satisfy- 
ing account of the motives for any one of my acts, to any creat- 
ure not prepared to admit himself as great a fool as myself. 
The greatest efforts, of all those very little ones I have made, 
have had their origin in fancy, in sentiment, or even in mere 
perverseness ; my greatest failures have been undeserved, my 
greatest successes unmerited. I find that neither my reason 
nor my convictions will ever explain my conduct, and I per- 
force conclude that they, therefore, have never suggested it. 
Yet I find, also, that I am quite ready, even with myself, to 
wrench reason and conviction to my conduct as though they 
had suggested it. I wonder if many other men are as great 
impostors as I. 



CHAPTER LII. 

Trouville, 28th July. 
Unless one were a German, divided from them only by an 
imaginary line of frontier and a real gulf of mutual injuries, it 
would be impossible to resist these Frenchmen. Having been 
on deck all last night, and fed all yesterday by Phil, I desired 
nothing else to-day than to have a little diner fin and to turn in 
early, for such are the blessed limits of his aspirations who is 
tired and hungry. The dinner, however, ordered at a famous 



198 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

restaurant, did not an-ive at the hour fixed, nor an hour later, 
upon which I sat down in a shocking temper to more of Phil's 
barbarous gastronomy. I had half eaten this when there ar- 
rived a pert, active, sparrow-lie waiter, looking like Capoul in 
one of his most highly-curled parts, and bearing the diner fin. 
He stepped on board, cast a pitying glance at the untutored 
heaps of plates and forks which constitute Phil's notion of a 
dinner-table, revolutionized it into order in the twinkling of an 
eye, praised the ship as being " ^e7^^^7," spread the dinner 
before my soured gaze, with a particular account of the excel- 
lence of each dish, finally persuaded me to eat it at this twelfth 
hour, and left me with the conviction that I was most unrea- 
sonable not to have waited his leisure. 



At Sea, Sunday, August 1st. 
" With lead and look-out no ship can be lost" is a sailoriz- 
ing saw which means much more than it says. Especially I 
take it to mean that no science, however complete, and no 
methods of calculation, however perfect, can replace and 
obviate the necessity for constant appeal to the elementary, 
stupid information of the despised senses, and that these must 
be kept constantly on guard over all conclusions arrived at, by 
means more complicated than their own direct action. This is 
opposed to the notions now fashionable, which, nevertheless, 
do daily supply the proof that it is true. In navigation this is 
written so that they who run may read. When Magellan un- 
dertook to sail round the world, the navigators, we are told by 
the men of science who went with him, " content themselves 
with knowing the latitude, and are so proud that they will not 
hear speak of longitude," and even the latitude was calculated 
upon the very rough observations made with the astrolabe. In 
these days we have the nicest instruments and the most 
varied and complete means of ascertaining the ship's place 
on the chart, while the charts themselves are well-nigh as 
complete as it is possible to make them. And the result 



FLOTSAX AND JETSAM. 199 

of it all is, that the very perfection of instruments and meth- 
ods has become a new danger, for it induces and persuades 
the navigator to content himself with their results, and to neg- 
lect and despise, or even to disbclic ^ the evidence of his 
senses. Many a vessel has been lost through reliance on cal- 
culations, which would have been safe had she had nothing else 
to trust to than lead and look-out. 

****** 

1st August. 

Phil is really admirable. He will not, indeed, ever turn out 
the crroat chef that I made of Bill— 1 don't think he will ever 
achieve those four dishes which Bill learned to cook so well, 
because so conscientiously and carefully, in the course of six 
months— but he has strokes of genius which surprise one into 
admiration. When I first came down from town, laden with 
the spoils of Covent Garden, he came to me with a pine-apple, 
on which I had expended all my substance, and asked me, 
" how he was to cook this here thing." To-day he has done 
better, for I had confided to him an artichoke, which I love 
mainly because it seems to me so well to represent the history 
of allour desires and ambitions— that is to say, that it amuses 
you immensely as long as you are slowly pulling its leaves and 
getting a very little out of each, and only begins to bore you 
when you come to the heart, which is all eating and no picking. 
Well, Phil has simplified the matter by simply picking all the 
leaves himself and heaving them overboard, leaving me nothing 
but this realized asset of a heart ! 



CHAPTER LHI. 

On Board the Billy Baby, 

August 8. 

The fearful and tremendous fact is that there are twenty- 
four hours in the day, which, after deducting the sweet eight 



200 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

of sleep, have to be filled up someliow. Who is there, not 
being one of those thrust into the groove of perpetual labor 
from their birth, who has not felt this ? Who is there who has 
never — nay, who has not often — felt that he has been hardly 
treated by the Creator in not having left to him the power of 
absolutely suppressing a part of his existence ? And yet in the 
face of this we dare to complain so loudly of the want of time. 
We venture even blasphemously to pretend that we lack the 
time to concern ourselves with the important affairs of our life, 
with the principles of religion, for example, or with the busi- 
ness of the State. And we comfort ourselves by saying that 
we will leave these matters to the experts, the very men of all 
others who are in them to be suspected, since they live only by 
professing and supporting the system that pays them. 

In reality it is more nearly true that everybody has too much 
time than that he has too little. At any rate, there are none 
who have too little for their business in life. The trouble is 
that they will not apply it to that business, but go about pain- 
fully to ^aste it over trifling and superfluous business, or tri- 
fling and superfluous pleasures (for of these, too, some are neces- 
sary), and then complain that they have not enough left for 
what is requisite to be done. 

****** 

Not only is there time enough, but there is virtue and intel- 
lect enough in the world to make it as well worth living in as 
the Creator has by his works declared it to be. And however 
foolish we may be, we are all wise enough to know that it is 
important to give to virtue and to intellect their proper place, 
which is to say the principal place, in the conduct of human 
affairs. Yet it would seem as though all effort from generation 
to generation had been directed to doing exactly the reverse. 
The vulgar herd of men are only capable of playing about, of 
wondering at all things, and of believing and doing as they are 
told. A few only there are who can content themselves with 
none of these things, and who are thus marked out as having 
been sent into the world on more important errands. You 



FLOTSAM Aid) JETiSAM. 201 

take the vulgar herd and call one king, another prince, priest, 
lawgiver, subject, vassal, what not, which changes not their 
nature, and is only your way of lying in the face of Heaven by 
declaring that one of them, taken indiscriminately, is afore or 
after other. And the few to whom the highest title and the 
office of right belong, find both usurped, and themselves rel- 
egated mostly to the hewing of wood and the drawing of 
water. It is not that the blind lead the blind, but that the 
blind lead the seeing, and push him into the very ditch which 
he alone could discover. 

****** 

At Sea, August 9. 
Those who see the Creator in his works cannot fail to love 
him. And they who know why they love the sea know that 
it is because here they do see him — because they find them- 
selves without their shoes in the holy of holies. In the 
tempest, when the rack scours the sky, as it did last night, 
thick and black, when the wind howls, when lightnings jag 
down a vivid light on the dark waters, and the waves come up 
and look in at you over your rail as you plunge and dive into 
them — then you feel that you are in the hands of Omnipotence, 
and that the most you can do is to take or to guess at the Om- 
nipotent decrees, and to act upon them and by them. Or when, 
as to-day, the calm succeeds, the clouds lie lazily about the blue 
in white and gray fleeces, when the sun shines and the waters 
lilt to the gentle measure of a soft breeze, that you drink in 
through your nostrils as though it were immortality — who can 
fail to feel in these the Majesty, the Might, and the Beneticence 
of the Almighty ? 



CHAPTER LIV. 

In Port, 14th August. 
It is a pregnant fact that no man has yet been found to chal- 
lenge the perfection of the material world, or of any part of its 



202 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

furniture. Never has it been so much as conceived that any 
one of the created things and beings we see around us is not 
thoroughly adapted to its immediate uses. This has been felt 
by all men in all ages, and in every stage of knowledge, as 
completely as it now is or, so far as we may judge from anal- 
ogy, which is all we have to judge by, ever will be felt. It 
was believed of the solar system, when the Ptolemaic hypothesis 
of the sun moving round the earth was received ; it is believed 
now that Copernicus has re-established the more ancient eastern 
system of astronomy. It was believed of the human body 
before and after Harvey had established the circulation of the 
blood ; of all animals before Buffou, Cuvier, or Darwin. It is 
to be accepted, therefore, as an eternal truth — for that belief is 
certainly entitled to be so considered which no increase of 
knowledge can affect ; and this is, perhaps, the only belief 
which no increase of knowledge ever has affected. Surely, 
then, here at last is an impregnable standpoint ; surely here is 
the one proof that has never failed of the Omnipotence, the 
Beneficence, and the Majesty of the Almighty ; surely this is 
the one great rebuke to those who have presumed to say that 
there is no Almighty. 

****** 
To give attention to things is to give all we can, and what is 
remarkable is, that while the first and the last result of atten- 
tion to the works of God is always admiration, so the result, 
first or last, of attention to the works of man is always dissatis- 
faction. We feel that the former are perfect and satisfactory, 
even if we do not know it ; we feel equally that the latter are 
imperfect and unsatisfactory, if only we did know it. Whence 
arises the spirit of criticism. And whence, also, it arises that 
every man will as little question the works of God as he readily 
will those of man. For we each of us believe that we possess 
in ourselves all-sufficient canons of judgment. Even the very 
little feel capable of criticising the very great ; for to say that 
they are great is to criticise them. And the amusing part of it 
is, that he is the greatest of men whose work is most com- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 203 

pletely accepted by the littlest. So that universal popularity 
amounts to nothing more than a certificate of excellence from 
those who are least competent, according to ordinary notions, 
to give it. 

****** 

Descartes, in his discourse upon reason and truth, informs us 
that as soon as he was old enough to be quit of his schoolmas- 
ters he " entirely quitted the study of letters, and resolving to 
seek no other science than that which I could find in myself or 
in the great book of the world, I employed the rest of my 
youth in travelling, in seeing courts and armies, in frequenting 
people of diverse humors and conditions, and in so reflecting 
everywhere on the things I saw, as myself to draw more profit 
from them — for it seemed to me that I should find much more 
truth in the reasoning that each one makes touching the affairs 
which interest him, and of which the event will shortly after 
punish him if he has judged them ill, than in that which a man of 
letters makes in his study touching speculations which produce 
no effect, and which are of no consequence to him unless it be 
that he will satisfy his vanity in proportion as they are far from 
common sense, and in proportion to the clevern'ess and artifice 
he has employed to make them appear probable." This is 
doubtless the right way to proceed ; but then in order to do 
that we must each consider the tenement that has bceu given to 
us for our habitation in this world, and ourselves make the furni- 
ture appropriate to it. Whereas it is so much simpler to live 
in the furnished lodgings that men of letters have provided 

for us. 

****** 

The way the great sixteenth century sculptor, Torrigiani, 
died was this. He had made in Spain a statue of the Virgin ; 
the pious persons who had ordered it of him sought to pay him 
for it much less than he held the work to be worth, whereupon 
at last Torrigiani, being a sensitive and impatient man, took his 
malJet and broke the statue to pieces. This was declared to be 



204 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

an act of impious sacrilege, and Torrigiani was put into the 
prison of tlie Inquisition and condemned to be burned for it, 
from whicli be only saved himself by starving himself to death. 
Is not this the very typical history of what is sometimes known 
as impiety, blasphemy, and the like ? By man's hand, and 
out of man's imagination, a something is made which is in- 
tended to represent, and which maybe does more or less repre- 
sent, the Almighty. And then it is declared that to deface or 
to injure that creation is to defame and to insult the uncreated 
original that has been sought in it. The artificer takes the 
wood — of one part he makes a god and worships it, and of the 
other a fire wherein to burn all those who will not worship with 
him. 

Benvemito Cellini's father had conceived the ambition of 
milking him the first flute-player in the world, and to the day 
of his death was wont tenderly to reproach his son with having 
neglected that divine vocation in order to become an artist in 
the working of metals. And if this is noteworthy, no less 
noteworthy is Benvenuto's own desire, shown in his delightful 
memoirs, to present himself as a roystering gallant and soldier, 
rather than as the artist he was. AVhen the Constable Bourbon 
besieged Rome, Benvenuto obtained the command of a few 
pieces of artillery in St. Angel o, where the Pope had taken 
refuge, and he tells of the goo^ shots he made with far more 
detail and pride than he shows for any of his immortal works. 
But this is to be forgiven for the good story he tells of the tiara 
and jewels. When the castle was supposed to be in imminent 
danger of being taken, the Pope sent for Benvenuto, who, by 
his orders, broke up the triple crown and all the apostolic 
jewels, melted down the gold, and sewed the precious stones in 
pieces of stuff on the Holy Father's back ! Is not this a 
charming and suggestive story ? 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 205 



CHAPTER LV. 



At Sea, l7th August. 
There come, perhaps, to all of us those luoiuents of pro- 
found disappointment and depression when all energy seems to 
fail, when all enjoyments disgust, and all tastes turn to bitter in 
the mouth. This does not commonly arise from the apparent 
nature of circumstances ; on the contrary, when these seem 
most desperate and hopeless, then it is that a man will feel the 
most spirit rise within him, then that his courage will be 
greatest and the work he does be the hardest. It is rather 
when all things appear to go smoothly, when his desires seem 
satisfied and his prospects fair, that this handwriting appears 
on the wall declaring that there is no delight in anything that 
he knows. And then he feels that desire to pluck himself up 
by the roots from all that he does know and to seek that he 
does not, which always seems to promise consolation, and 
which, indeed, always brings consolation. This being so, we 
are, perhaps, less unfortunate than we think in knowing little, 
since that in itself assures us that the field open to us is by so 
much the greater ; for if there were any who had tried every- 
thing and knew everything in the world, the only resource for 
him on such an occasion were to go out of it. 

He who would really go to war, and not merely make a 
noise with his weapons, always does do it at his own cost. 
Bayard lost his own life, Galileo his own liberty, Palissy 
burnt his own furniture to fire his ware, Cellini melted his own 
plate to found his Theseus, and not one^ of them was ever 
repaid by the enjoyment of ease, wealth, or glory for the vic- 
tories which they won, and by which others have profite'd. 
There is no chance but this — either to fight in the van with 
certain loss of tranquillity and probable loss of life and honor ; 
or else to do sutler's work in the rear of the army, and wlien 



206 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

the battle is over to come forth by night and phmder the dead. 
The latter trade brings a reward which all can appreciate ; 
but he who would enter upon the former must be very sure of 
his mission, very sure of his methods, and very sufficiently 
satisfied with the sole testimony of his own conscience that he 
has done well ; for he will get no other. 

****** 

It is a common saying — and like most common sayings, a 
false one — that tastes differ, as though taste were of many 
kinds, or as though it consisted in aught else than the power 
of recognizing excellence. What really differs is the extent to 
which each possesses this power, which varies with the knowl- 
edge acquired, the attention given, and the opportunities pos- 
sessed. Yet those who have fulfilled none of the conditions, 
assume equally with those who have fulfilled all to have a taste 
— whence it is made to seem as though excellence varied in 
proportion to the power of detecting it. We should all have 
loved Helen of Troy had we but known her, seen her, and 
lived with her as Paris did ; and if we love another it is that 
our knowledge, attention, and opportunities have not extended 
beyond that other. "A poor thing, but mine own," we 
might all say ; instead of which w^e all do say, " a rich thing, 
because mine own," and declare that we have selected by taste 
that which has been forced upon us by necessity. This is one 
of the consolations of ignorance. 

****** 

Is it not strange that with all the work that has been done 
since the world began, it is precisely those truths which it 
most imports us to know that are still farthest from being de- 
monstrated ? The demonstration that two and two make four, 
that the whole is greater than the part, nay, that the square of 
th'^ hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum 
of the squares of the other two sides — this is perfect ; no 
human creature who has been taken through the steps that lead 
to the demonstration ever could doubt or ever has doubted it. 



FLOTSAM AJq^D JETSAM. 207 

But the nature and the attributes of tlie Almighty, the nature 
of good and evil, the immortality of the soul, these are matters 
which are still as problems to mankind, and which have re- 
ceived demonstrations, nay, which still receive them, as various 
as the tongues and the climates of the earth. This may show 
us that it is not only the right, but also the duty of each to 
approach these tremendous subjects for himself ; not, indeed, 
lightly or without aim, but honestly and laboriously, so that he 
may at last have something more to say for his belief than that 
he has received it from a chance nurse, a chance priest, or, 
worst of all, from a chance atheist. 

****** 
That a man should love his friend and hate his enemy is a 
rule far less easy to act upon than it seems. It is, indeed, 
more difiScult to hate than to love ; for if there are few who de- 
serve at our hands more than endurance, there are still fewer 
who deserve more than contempt. We all are ready to return 
good for good, and evil for evil ; we do it, rather as a matter 
of debtor and creditor account, than from love in the one case 
or from hatred in the other. And even as a question of ac- 
count this is also true, since if there are few who can confer 
true benefits there are fewer who can inflict real injury. The 
mere disposition and intention to inflict it, however they may 
by acts be made manifest, can of themselves only excite pity 
and laughter — not hatred. I am sure that I must have esteemed 
a man much, and I am not sure but that I must have loved 
him much, in order to hate him a little. 



CHAPTER LVr. * 

Off Nieuport, lioth August. 
With fine weather and the right amount of wind to enable 
you to go nicely, "• trade with the tide," it is hard to resist 
the temptation of playing about with the fish, and I have just 



208 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

got a haul of my trawl over these Flemish Banks, which are a 
famous place for it. The mere notion of it enlivened the 
whole of my immense ship's company, and we regard ourselves 
as spoiled children of Fortune now that we have realized our 
take. For it consists of two bucketf uls of soles, ray (' ' vir- 
gins," Phil calls them, " because," he says, " they are little 
thorn-backs") " monkeys," crabs, and star-fish. There is al} 
the fun of gambling in it, with this advantage, that you stand 
to lose nothing ; unless, indeed, it be your tide in, as I fear 
we shall do. And the delight of circumventing " them artful 
beggars, ' ' the fish, is greater even than the pleasure of eating 
them fresh out of the water, which, however, is not small. 
The amusing part of it is that the more you catch the more 
useless they are to you ; so that unless you have caught but 
few indeed, you always "have to throw the major part over- 
board. Which, in fact, is the history of all acquisitions by 
land or by sea. 

****** 

Bruges, 27th August. 
Probably nine out of ten of any given persons would say off- 
hand that Bruges is a very interesting city, and it is in all like- 
lihood that the tenth would believe it. Yet in truth it is a 
most poverty-stricken assemblage of ghost-like houses without 
inhabitants, without life, and, what is most cruel of all, with- 
out architecture — even Flemish architecture, which is not ask- 
ing much, heaven knows. The Cathedral is a kind of brick 
skeleton which may or may not have been intended for a stone 
covering ; the Hotel de Ville is of that pretentious Gothic which 
has made so many modern victims, and the only truly interests 
ing features are a few houses which the Spaniards have left as 
their legacy of glory here, just as the Moors left theirs in Spain, 
to be the principal ornaments of those who are no longer under 
their rule. The famous belfry, a fourteenth-century monument 
though it be, is not at all beautiful in itself, and is stuck in thQ 
midst of a mass of low builidngs like a beacon in a sand-bank. 
The redeeming part of it is its intention as a rallying-point for 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 209 

free citizens, sufficiently indicated by the bell and the two 
balconies. To bring the populace together and to make 
speeches to them, have been from all times the methods of 
popular government, and Bruges long lived in the belief that 
popular government was the perfection of all things. Now it 
lives upon the past, and the remnant that remains of its inhabi- 
tants pass their days in regretting the time when Damene was 
a port and Bruges a great city, and in aping the fashions of 
Paris. It is a sorry place. Also it is full of mosquitoes. 
****** 
There are here a Nativity by Holbein, a Mater Dolorosa by 
Themling, and a Martyrdom by Meinling, in all of which pict- 
ures I believe, for they have all the character of the Flemish 
school so far as I know it ; there is also a Virgin and Child 
attributed to Michael Augelo, in which statuary I do not be- 
lieve, since it has not the character of Michael Angelo's work 
so far as I know it. Yet the verger who showed it assured me 
it was his. So that I claim to prefer my judgment, founded on 
my knowledge of Michael's undoubted works, to his tradition. 
If this is allowable for the works attributed to man, is it allow- 
able for the works attributed to God ? I had also to ask my- 
self this question, because another verger showed me pictures 
of the miracles of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins, 
■which miracle he assured me was historical and undoubted. Yet 
I could not bring myself to believe either in that. In fact, I 
fear I am not master of ray belief, that I am the slave of the 
evidence presented to me and weighed by ray judgment, which 
raeans that I am to decide upon imperfect information by fal- 
lible reason. Doubtless the vergers are best off who believe 
in their Michael Angelo and St. Ursula, without weighing evi- 
dence, because they have been told to do so. This reminds 
me of one of Diderot's Pensees philosop/tiques : " Lost in an 
immense forest during the night, I have but one little light by 
which to conduct myself. Then comes a man who says, ' My 
friend, blow out your taper in order the better to find your 
way.' That man is a theologian." 



210 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

When I think of all the books I have read and of all the 
speeches I have listened to, even the best of them, it seems to 
me as though successful utterance in either form were in propor- 
tion to the boldness and insolence of the author. It seems as 
though the most famous had but put down recklessly the first 
trivialities that passed through their head, only taking care not 
to omit that which was most trivial. There is, indeed, the use 
of the tools to be learned ; but that is learned in using them, 
and as soon as you have acquired a sufficient vocabulary to ex- 
press your idle fancies, and sufficient immodesty to dare it, 
you are a great author or a great speaker. 

A certain man would never have but one shirt at a time, 
because he had but one body at a time on which to put it. 
From which it follows that at certain intervals he had no shirt 
at all, unless, indeed, the one he had was everlasting, which is 
inadmissible. And thus it is that we are reduced to the desire 
to possess the superfluities of life, not because we care for the 
superfluous, but because we desire to make sure of always hav- 
ing the necessary. 

****** 

OsTEND, 28th August. 

" Now, Phil," said I, " that is the right way to deal with a 
cucumber. You saw me cover the slices with salt and set the 
plate up on a slant, and now you see, as I told you, that all 
that water has run from it." Phil says, "Yes, sir;" but 
Phil has an infinitude of different ways of uttering those two 
words, which make up pretty well the whole of his conversa- 
tion with me, and on this occasion he did not bring them out 
with that enthusiasm appropriate to indicate that a new and 
great light had broken in upon his soul. This grieved me ; for 
if there is one only thing in the world that I ^o understand it 
is cookery in all its branches ; and I have observed that Philip 
has shown great flippancy in receiving my revelations on this 
— in fact I strongly suspect a conspiracy in the forecastle to 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 211 

treat the whole matter with unbelieving derision. I remember 
teaching Phil the immortal omelette, and suddenl}^ seeing him 
go head first into the frying-pan under strong suspicions of a 
Parthian shove from Ned, who was going on deck, and whom 
I believe I there heard chuckling in concert with George. I 
may be wrong, but when I heard Phil say, " Yes, sir," in a 
hesitating, half-convinced way, I felt wounded. It was clear 
he did not believe as he should. " Do you see ?" I said, 
severely looking at him. Phil has a way of half grinning oc- 
casionally, and here he half grinned, and repeated his *' Yes, 
sir," with an even more unsatisfactory intonation. " VicW, 
but don't you see the water ?" I asked, angrily. '* Oh, yes, 
sir," he replied, readily, with an accent of the most profound 
conviction. " Well, then — " but here I suddenly saw that 
I was embarking in a disquisition on the nature and properties 
of cucumber, and on the efiEect of getting rid of this water 
from it ; so I simply added, " All right,'' and left Phil to 
digest the brutal fact that when you put salt on cucumber 
water results, without, I feel sure, having conveyed any per- 
suasion into his mind that the cucumber is better afterward 
than it was before. 

****** 
I have been half through the town to find a washerwoman 
who would undertake to wash the ship's linen in two days, and 
had almost resolved to go to sea dirty, when I was directed to 
a little street at the end of unknown turnings. I turned and 
turned till I came to it ; and walking into the first house, ac- 
cording to my instructions, I found myself face to face with an 
old harridan, who, as usual, spoke nothing but the most ac- 
cursed of the Flemish tongues. But now, as I was trying to 
come to terms with her by the help of German and pantomime, 
there stepped into the passage the most* splendid creature that 
ever wore brown eyes for the injury of man. With hair 
deftly plaited on the top of her head, crowning a face the very 
Fornarina's own, with bare arms, and the free port and car- 
riage of a goddess, and above all with a smile that never ceased 



212 FLOTSAM Al^D JETSAM. 

but only played in diverse accents over her features, slie sud- 
denly made me forget my washing, my departure, and Phil, 
who stood behind me with the bundle over his shoulder, 
altogether. "Yes," she said, "she would do it."' "And 
would she be careful really to starch the shirts ?" " Yes, of 
course." Here, for the twentieth time, she showed a glisten- 
ing row of pearly teeth. " And she would be sure to have 
them ready?" "Quite sure." "And — yes — that was all. 
Ah ! — and, let us see — let us see — to-day was Wednesday ?" 
" Yes, Wednesday," she re-echoed abstractedly, rolling her 
sleeve a little further up, so that a dimpled elbow came into 
sight. " Wednesday — yes — well, then, on" — but at this 
point she gave another roll, raising her hand to the ceiling to 
do it the more easily, and again showing those teeth. Of 
course I had to wait till she had done this, and then I added, 
" Well, then, on Friday. Now, Phil, what are you waiting 
for?" 

There is occasionally an unnatural and untoward smartness 
about Phil which is intensely irritating. If ever I lie in my 
berth till half-past seven, then it is and then alone that he has 
my coffee ready by seven ; and when I turned out this morn- 
ing the first thing I saw was a gigantic basket full of the clean 
linen. But who was to tell whether he had got it all, or 
whether he had paid the bill, or whether — clearly it was neces- 
sary I should myself go and see to all this. Go, therefore, I 
did, and I don't know why, but so it was that, when I saw my 
belle Ostendaise again, I had a kind of jump just the same in 
nature, if not in degree, as one might feel at suddenly coming 
across the Sacharissa of one's most constant devotions. She 
smiled — and then I smiled. Then I asked in the most inno- 
cent way if the linen were ready. At this she smiled again, 
and put her thumb and finger — a wonderful taper thumb and 
finger for a washerwoman — on the edge of her sleeve, whereat 
I stood abashed and engrossed. " WTiy, then, did not Mon- 
sieur know that his man had been to fetch it?" Monsieur, 
with eyes still fixed upon that sleeve, evasively answered, 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 213 

** Vraiment !" as thouGjh this were quite new to him ; but 
feeUng unequal to keeping up, suddenly remarked that there 
were very many people at Ostend— as though that naturally 
followed or explained something— and thereupon went away. 
****** 

Ostend, 30th August. 

I feel extremely small. I have navigated so long without 
pilots, without tugs, without any of the appliances which are 
usually held to be necessary, that I have got to believe in the 
Billy Baby, in her captain (for Billy Baby purposes), and in 
her crew, as in a religion. I have become, in short, convinced 
that she can do anything " off her own bat" (as they say, I 
believe, in cricket); and now I have got a " facer" (as they 
say, I believe, in pugilism), and am humbled. Nevertheless, 
I so far hold on to my belief in the Billy Baby religion as to 
be still convinced that if I had been in any less lucky ship I 
should have gone to pieces ; in fact, I did think we should go 
to pieces, and the excitement of it was great. 

It was all the fault of an abominable Norwegian brig, whose 
papers were not in order, and who kept us for three mortal 
hours in the lock before we could get out. The wind was 
strong from N. W. all but right into the harbor, and the spring 
tide (to-day is the new moon) was setting right across the har- 
bor to the eastward at thirty thousand miles an hour at a 
moderate computation. I knew well the danger of getting 
borne down on to the eastern jetty with wind and tide, but my 
faith was strong, and I declined all help, and started. We 
were nearing the entrance when I saw that between the wind 
and the tide she wouldn't fetch out. I put her about ; but the 
heavy sea knocked her out of time— she declined to stay— and 
in a moment we were into the east jetty, jammed against it 
■with the whole force of wind and tide, *and thumping in a way 
-which was perfectly awful. Down sail was the only thing to 
do, and then to get a line if possible to the west jetty. But 
the sea was very heavy— would she hold together till then, or 
smash up ? Our boat was on deck, unluckily, but after a time 



214 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

I saw one coming down the port, and hailed him. Meantime 
she kept thumping against the jetty in a way it seemed impos- 
sible she could stand, and I expected every instant to see some- 
thing or everything go. This lasted for some five mortal 
minutes, but at last the boat got down to us, took a line, and 
in about two years, as it seemed, we heard the welcome sound 
*' haul in." Haul in we did, ran the foresail up, got her 
round, and sailed ignominiously into the harbor again — for it 
was useless to try to get out. And now I have been ascer- 
taining my damages, which, considering all things, are very 
small. My gaff is broken, three bolts and a plank or two, in- 
cluding the covering plank, sprung, cat-head broken off, and 
some paint gone, is about the sum of everything. We have 
come off cheaply enough, and but for the humiliation I should 
not care. But I really thought the time had come to sing my 
little hymn, and even Ned, who believes in her as much as I 
do, avows that he doesn't know how it was she didn't go to 
pieces. Well, I shall start again at low water, and repair 
damages when I get to England. I am only consoled by the 
fact that exactly the same thing has happened this morning to 
two other vessels, a Ramsgate smack and an Ostend fisherman, 
and that it was all the fault of the Norwegian brig, which pre- 
vented me from going out as I intended at half-flood over the 
slack of the stream. 



CHAPTER LYH. 

At Sea, 8th September. 
It is a terrible thing to think how continually this problem, 
'' What shall I do with my life ?" presents itself . For the man 
whose whole efforts can barely suffice to procure bread, the 
problem is indeed simple ; he has to get his bread somehow, 
and there is an end of it. For the man who is in, and has at 
his command, one calling just sufficient to procure bread, it is 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. *Z16 

no problem at all ; all he knows is how to make dolls' eyes, 
and he has no choice but to go on making dolls' eyes for bare 
existence. But go a stage higher ; go only to the designer of 
dolls, and you will find a man harassed by this problem, from 
the moment that it is time till the moment it is no longer tiuie 

to solve it. 

And what is still more terrible is that, so soon as you at- 
tempt to grapple with this first essential, and as often as you 
attempt it, you find yourself driven still further back to this 
other question— " Shall I be honest?" Shall I do what I 
know, and say what is in me, to the end they point to, or shall 
I do and say other things to my own ends ? I have my hand 
full of truths ; shall I open it and overwhelm myself together 
with the rest ; or shall I close it, and use it, the more heavily 
weighted for them, fist-like, to hustle my way through this 
crowd ? Can I, the centre and pivot of the world to myself, 
trail the pike and do soldier's, ay, or it may be sutler's duty ? 
—shall I not break through and lead the army, or at the least a 
brigade ? When you have settled this your life is won or lost. 
****** 

It is the curse of man to make the monster that devours him. 
And the worst of all is that monster Want, to feed and gorge 
which till he dies, beyond all resurrection, of mere satiety, 
seems to be held the only proper purpose of life. When he 
first comes to you he is but little in stature, soon satisfied 
and easily pleased, a true friend and a charming companion, 
pointing out the uses of things, full of suggestion, serving you 
like a lackey for the smallest of rewards. And then you fool- 
ishly have thought to mcrease his value by increasing his stat- 
ure. With strange inventions and unholy charms you have, as 
you proceeded on your journey, succeeded in blowing him out 
to the dimensions of a giant, standing with feet wide asunder 
as the poles, and head in the clouds of heaven. You have made 
him immense, terrible, tremendous, untiring, insatiable, that 
he may serve you the better ; and lo ! he is your master. You 
may not stir but as he directs ; you may not speak or think but 



216 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

as lie orders ; there is no more any God, any glorious sky and 
earth, any light of the sun and moon for you but as he wills ; 
things are and are not, as he pleases ; and you — you who made 
him what he is from what he was — you are condemned to ramp 
and grovel among garbage to the end of your days, to fill a 
bottomless maw and satisfy the insatiable. 

****** 

The one true satisfaction that a man can take of his life is to 
feel that he is doing some fruitful thing with it, that he, too, 
like all those that he holds to be the ignobler works of God, is 
giving back to the earth what he has taken from it. He who 
can convince himself of this — that he is truly engaged in work 
which will better the world while he lives, knows then that he 
is about his duty ; he who is persuaded that his work will live 
and bear fruit after he is gone, has already achieved immortal- 
ity. The applause and acceptation of men, and all that goes 
to make up honor and fame, are only of value in so far as they 
begin or confirm this conviction. But, now, if the conviction 
be not there — if, instead of this, there be doubt, or perhaps a 
strong suspicion of the contrary sort — if the martyr has gone 
to the stake for gods of which he does not know that they are 
gods, then fame, honor, and to be seen of men is no salve, but 
only a torture the more. 

****** 

I know a few men — alas ! not many — of whom I am sure 
that they are honest, nor do I see any reason why I should not 
continue to be sure of it. But I know, also, some of whom I 
am convinced that they are rogues without faith or law ; and 
when I come to think of these I am compelled to admit that of 
them, at least, I dare not be sure. Do we not each of us re- 
member how small — how infinitesimally small — a part even of 
our acts — much less of our motives — is known to any who 
would judge us ; do we not remember how great a wrong has 
been done to us by judgments passed glibly on this imperfect 
knowledge ? and shall we not hesitate before we also judge 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 21? 

others ? But, above all, shall we not entirely cease to care how 
other* judge us ? But I speak as a fool, assuming that what 
we want is a true judgment — not a false character. 

The foregoing observation is what is called commonplace. 
That is the point of it ; since that shows that all men feel its 
truth. For the most fearful of all things is to see the most 
common convictions most commonly denied in practice. 

Columbus did not discover America, for he took it to be 
Asia ; neither did Magellan first sail round the world, for he 
was killed at the Philippines when the circuit was barely half 
completed. Galileo did not believe that the earth moved round 
the sun, for he solemnly recanted that heresy. But they went 
into the unknown, and adventured themselves over the edge of 
the world, and there is, therefore, nothing to abate from their 
fame. For to measure the value of work and the credit due 
for it by the results achieved, is as foolish as to measure the 
morality of facts by their accomplishment. Yet these are the 
only methods of measurement admitted, even by those who 
affect to revere Columbus, Magellan, and Galileo. 



CHAPTER LVIII. 

In Port, 15th September. 
I ONCE heard a man wrangling with a cabman over six- 
pence. " It isn't the amount, you know, but the Principle," 
he explained to me, with which I agreed. Some time after 
the same man confided to me the negotiations respecting his 
marriage settlements, as to which a great fight was being waged 
over a certain sum of ten thousand pounds. He said nothing 
of principle then, and treated the matter as deriving its impor- 
tance solely from the largeness of the amount at stake. From 
which I was forced to conclude that there was in his estimation 
a point somewhere between sixpence and ten thousand pounds, 



218 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

at which Principle may cease to operate and be disregarded, 
and Amount be alone taken into consideration ; which further 
led me to reflect that all men, with the fewest possible excep- 
tions, do also recognize that point. The point itself varies 
with the wants, real or invented, of the individual ; but when 
once that point is passed, whoever can offer to him the satisfac- 
tion of his want is his master, who may dispose of him, of 
his Principle, and his virtue together. The cabman, we will 
say, at sixpence gives up Principle for Amount ; he is salable 
therefore at sixpence. The gentleman, we will say, gives it up 
not under ten thousand pounds ; he is salable, therefore, at 
ten thousand. And between the two there must be many who 
are salable at ten pounds, at fifty, at a hundred, or a thousand. 
So that Walpole would not be wrong even in this age of virtue. 
Only of the two I should far less condemn the cabman who 
sold his Principle for sixpenny worth of necessaries, than the 
gentleman who sold his for ten thousand pounds' worth of 
superfluities. 

****** 
That the end does not justify the means we all are or profess 
to be agreed ; but what is strange is that nobody has ever ques- 
tioned or ever does question whether the means justify the end. 
The received code is that you may not do an unlawful thing 
because it tends to compass a lawful end, but that you may do 
a lawful thing even though it tends to compass an unlawful 
end. You shall not lie and save innocent blood, but you shall 
speak the truth and spill it. You shall not murder, steal, or 
betray your country ; but you shall truly and honestly serve a 
murderer, a thief, or a traitor, without crime, and shall be 
harmless in bringing about his wicked ends, because your means 
have not been wicked. You may know the ends to be wicked, 
but you are not to know it, being concerned only with the 
means that you employ. You may not do evil that good may 
come, but you may and shall do good that evil may come. 
You have nothing to do with the end, forsooth, and are bound 
not to look at it. You are a wheel in a fixed place, and all 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 219 

you have to do is to turn without eccentricity on your axis. 
Cowardly and degrading notion which prescribes the honest 
service of roguery and the faithful following of treacliery ! 
What kind of answer, too, will it be when one day the answer 
is called for, to say that we never inquired as to the end, 
and thought ourselves secure in the fair appearance of the 
means ? 

***** ;yt 

I consider all the self-made men I know, and I conclude that 
all the great fortunes, which is to say as times go all the great 
successes, of our days, have been made either by superiority in 
the mean swindling by whicli money is transferred in a genera- 
tion too cowardly for open violence — or else by the more 
honest method of hitting upon a very small modification in 
some article of universal necessity. One millionnaire represents 
an improved axle-tree, another a new stitch in a sewing-machine, 
a third a novel mixture of lubricating grease, and I have at this 
moment a man in my eye who has been offered thirty thousand 
pounds for a mere notion of bolting together railway rails. 
The men who first invented axle-trees, sewing-machines, lubrica- 
tion, and rails, were miserable failures as compared with these, 
their latter-day pai'asites— and so it is that while all the great 
untried original ideas are still going a-begging, and only get at 
last received by chance, all the small supplementary contempt- 
ible ideas that fasten upon them when once they are received, 
are madly scrambled for and bring certain reward. 

Thus it is that with our minds bent on small objects we 
are become a small people with the small ideas that pay, 
looking with distrust and contempt on the larger that only 
wear, their originator. It is not that the age of heroism is 
past. There are still heroic things — alas ! Jiow many— to be 
done ; and still heroic men — alas ! how few — to do them. 
And he must be the greater hero who attempts them, seeing 
that he must sow his life, his repose, his very soul, spirit, and 
reputation, and leave to others who shall pass casually by, to 
pluck with careless hand all the fruit of the tree he has planted. 



220 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

Yet not all, for he has his own knowledge of the worth of his 
own work. If he can be content with this he must, it is true, 
be a hero indeed ; but if he be less than content with it he is 
no hero at all. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

In Port, 25th September. 
It is a pitiable thing to think that, with the exception of the 
fishermen, and a few of us favored ones who have been fisher- 
men ourselves, there is scarcely a creature in those sea-girt 
islands of ours who knows the proper taste of fish. The dead 
bodies of fish kept for days or weeks, or even for months, in 
ice-cellars they know indeed ; but these are not fish. They are 
like to one another, except in shape and sauce, and no more 
like to the fish cooked fresh out of the water than mummy is 
like to man. If those who look at menus and go away believ- 
ing, on the faith of them, that they have eaten turbot, brill, 
sole, mullet, or what not, were to get one haul of a trawl, or a 
trammel, or even of a " dabbing" line (most delicious of all 
fish is the dab, and therefore, I suppose, least known), and 
were to eat of their take, they would never again look at an 
ice-preserved fish. This icing is another of our delightful de- 
vices by which we improve out of everything its natural salt 
and taste, and make all things insipid and alike ; which re- 
minds me that all the inventions I know of for improving upon 
the original simplicity of things, acts, and beliefs do commonly 
end in suppressing their original, like wicked children that eat 
their father. The taking of notes to aid memory kills memory ; 
the study of other men's thoughts to provoke our own thought 
makes an end of thinking ; theology destroys religion ; legis- 
lation destroys the Law ; many inventions have left man less 
upright than God made him. And now there is not one but 
feels the yearning to go back to the time when inventions were 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 221 

not, and mankind ate their fish either not at all or fresh out of 
the water. 



" No man can bathe twice in the same river," is an axiom 
accepted by all who will think of it, and upon this it has been 
remarked that no man can even bathe once in the same river, 
for before he has bathed even that once, the water in which he 
began has run away. Just so no man can be twice the same 
self — no, nor perhaps once. Most of us are conscious that by 
efflux of time their personality has changed — that all that con- 
stitutes it, whether corporeal or mental, has undergone altera- 
tion, and that they are no longer what they were. They know 
also that this alteration has not taken place suddenly or by 
jumps, but so gradually as to be imperceptible to themselves 
except by comparisons made at considerable intervals. A per- 
sonality they have, but, like the river, it is always running 
away, and its place being filled by another. I who write this 
am not the same precisely as the I who wrote the last sentence 
of this paragraph, nor as the I who will write the next. The 
intermediate I is, indeed, the son of the first and the father of 
the third, yet not the same. And now I ask myself which one 
of my many selves it is which will live, eternally or tempo- 
rarily, when the long succession of them is closed ? There are 
one or two, perhaps three of them, which I should repudiate 
with indignation, there are many of which I have a mean opin- 
ion, and there are a few which I admire. If I could only pick 
and choose ! But no, this principle of averages will come in, and 
I shall live forever or for a day, in the spheres or in one man's 
mind, as my average self — which is the only one of all my 
selves that I have never known. It is bitter to think that when 
I am gone I should not recognize what remain^ of mc if I were 
ever able to get a glimpse of it. 

****** 

Mr. Hollo way ought to be Prime Minister of England. I 
never go anywhere at home or abroad, but I see his name ; I 



222 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

never take a newspaper, English or foreign, but I read the 
praises of his pills — and what is best of all, I am not obliged to 
take them, and never mean to. Bat, since we estimate the 
worth of men, and especially of ministers, by the extent to 
which their names have been advertised, why not frankly ac- 
cept the situation, and call upon Mr. Holloway to save his 
country ? His name is a household word where Gladstone and 
Disraeli have never been heard of ; his might and majesty and 
the cures he has made are written in every newspaper in the 
world. If this does not make a claim, what does ? And 
then, as I say, you are not obliged to take his pills. 



CHAPTER LX. 

At Sea, 16th October. 
It is humJliating to find what elementary difficulties crop up 
for the first time when you actually try to do anything— a 
thing which, so long as you only talked of it, seemed the 
simplest in all the world. Here am I who have set my heart 
on an Irish stew. I have got the recipe to make it — " Two 
pounds and a half of chops" (how am I to eat two pounds and 
a half of chops ?), " eight potatoes" (that seems a small allow- 
ance for so many chops), '^ and four small onions ; stew for 
two hours, and serve hot, ' ' which last direction assumes us all 
to be mad enough to serve it cold. Well, I have had Phil up 
on the quarter-deck, and read all this to him, when he asks me 
" When he's to put them onions in ?" " When ! why with all 
the rest of course — at least I suppose so." " But all the good- 
ness of 'em '11 boil away." Of course I couldn't admit this, 
and held him to putting everything in together. But suppose, 
now, that all the goodness does boil away! It will be very 
hard on me, for, in fact, it is precisely those onions that give 
the thing its flavor. I wonder when you ought to put them in. 



FLOTSAM Al^TD JETSAM. 223 

This Phil is a perfect revohitionist in a ship, with his ques- 
tions. I don't believe it matters a bit. 



I have often marvelled how it is that this blessed and bounti- 
ful Solitude, consoling mistress of men and mother of all great 
things as she is, should be so maligned. For even her worst 
enemies court her whenever they are moved into action. No 
man cares to have a company about him when he is very joyful 
or very sorrowful, very much in love, very full of hate, very de- 
termined, or even very drunk. If, therefore, he shuns solitude 
as a rule, it is that, as a rule, he lives a pale colorless life, so 
devoid of occupation that he must needs look upon many faces 
in order to fill the void, and cause him to forget that there is 
a void. But what is amusing is the notion, that for one unoc- 
cupied and objectless man to look upon another is in itself an 
object and an occupation. This reminds me of those Chinese 
boxes fitted exactly one inside the other. You open them all 
to the last, and in that you find — nothing. 

****** 

* Every one for himself and God for us all." Very fine, no 
doubt, is this modern gospel, made, like the razors, to sell, to a 
generation which believes in self-interest well understood — 
which is to say understood as self-interest. But now if that 
topmast goes, or that standing rigging betrays me, as this 
stanchion has done which has come away in my hand with a 
heavy lurch of the ship, will the shipwright be guiltless who 
supplied them ? Of course he will, you reply ; for I ought not 
to have trusted him or anybody, and ought to have examined, 
tried, and tested all sticks and ropes before I paid for them. 
I thank you. 

* * * * ^ * 

Off Shoreham, l7th October. 
Judging from what I have read even of the most favored 
heroes, I should suppose that to wait for the woman one adores 
must be trying ; but I doubt it is (|uite as trying to be laid to 



224 FLOTSAM AlTD JETSAM. 

at nightfall off y.oiir port, as I now ara, with a heavy sea, the 
wind dead on the shore, and blowing harder every minute, and 
no chance of getting in under five hours at least. There has 
been every appearance of what sailors call " dirt" — last night 
an immense " burr" or ring round the moon, this morning 
another round the sun, and a strong southerly wind all day. 
It is a question whether we hadn't better go to sea again, for 
if the bad weather which is coming comes too soon, we shall 
have what Ned calls a job of it, since I am forced to admit 
secretly to myself that the Billy Baby would not claw off a 
lee-shore at this distance. 

In this situation I remark, for the thousandth time, the tre- 
mendous consolation there is in the uncertainty of life and our 
ignorance of the future. The troubles one foresees from any 
distance are never those that happen, the misfortunes one fears 
are never those that overtake one. Your human providence is 
always at fault. You provide for being run over by this 
omnibus, and you get drowned at sea ; you fear you will not 
live through that gale, and a tile falls on your head ; you mourn 
oyer the infidelity of your lady love, and the misery that over- 
takes you is that you marry a vixen. And as the worst part 
of all trouble is the apprehension of it, it is a comfort to re- 
member that those of which we have had the most lively ap- 
prehension are precisely those we have escaped. Wherefore I 
opine that we shall get in all right, and I shall turn in and 
make up by a nap for being up all last night. 



CHAPTER LXI. 

At Sea, 24th October. 
Ah, yes ! There is comfort and consolation in this dear 
cherished Mother Nature in all her moods, and, I often think, 
iijore of it in those of her moods from which men avert their 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 225 

faces than in tlie rest. Look with me, look' at this sea, kissed 
into passion by the strong breath of the gale. Look at that 
angry red streak of sky that announces the long-wished-for 
day. Look at the torn rift that scours overhead, and the dark 
masses of squall-cloud lying on either hand, racing over the 
water and the coast, with their burden of rain and wind. 
Look at those waves which no man of the millions who have 
tried it has ever yet described, or given a notion of their in- 
finite play, their infinite change, and power, and color ; look 
at them with me, tired with a night's watching, anxious about 
the ship, full of work changing and reefing sails — look at them 
all and say if you can resist their beauty, or not see that in 
them is the very face and voice of the Eternal. Praise to Him 
who has given us these glimpses of majesty which alone make 
us to know our own nothingness, and which ever remind us 
that it is all very good, and that we have only to go and look 
upon it to know that. How dull, foolish, and flat are the 
thino-s that man has made out of such rao;s as he has stolen from 
the elements, in the presence of the elements themselves ; how 
antique, moth-eaten, and rusted all his inventions when you take 
the very best of them, and think of them now in the presence 
of this eternal beauty, force and youth, which are always at 
our doors, and which we all love, and all are affected by, 
though we do pretend to despise it as an old dust heap. Yes, 
indeed, it is good for us to be here. 

****** 
It is very humiliating, this love of little children, when one 
comes to think of it. For if we find our fellows are more 
lovable in the child than in the man, it must mean that we 
know them to be essentially and innately unlovable, and only 
to be really worthy of affection before the^r essential and in- 
nate qualities have had time to become developed. A good 
fruit is best when it is ripe ; but mankind, we conclude, are 
best when they are unripe. The very qualities that charm in 
the child in their immaturity, are precisely those that disgust 
in the grown man in their maturity. A little selfishness, a 



226 FLOTSAM AI^D JETSAM. 

little gluttony, a little ungenerosity, artlessly and sliamelessly 
shown by the child, appear to us not only innocent, but 
charming ; yet those same qualities when developed render our 
fellows odious to us, and all the more odious when covered 
with hypocrisy. It pleases to see the child ape the worse parts 
of the man ; it revolts to see the man ape the better part of 
the child. Possibly we misjudge both. 

* * ^ * * * 

Can a man pray who does not believe ? Certainly he can, 
and certainly in time of imminent need, if at no other, he will. 
For he, too, does believe in something, if not in that very 
thing you put before him ; and he will pray to that in your 
formula, while all the time he is praying through that to the 
thing in which he believes. The world presses upon him, 
unknown and uncomprehended powers compass him about, and 
if in his anxious yearning he finds aught near at hand claiming 
to be a symbol of the Power in whose hand he feels himself to 
be — ay, even though it be the rudest and most manifest fetich 
— he will pray to the fetich rather than not pray at all, and if 
for no other reason, yet for this — that he does not know but 
that there may be something in it. 

In Port, 26th October. 
I have sometimes idly enough wondered whether there is 
really anything pleasurable in being addressed as Sir Tom, 
Sir Dick, My Lord, Your Grace, and so forth. Because that 
is all the advantage a man really gets out of being one whom 
his Sovereign, in the name of his country, has delighted to 
honor. All the rest — the sitting above the salt, the best cut of 
the joint, the arm-chair, the off-side of the carriage, and the 
going down to dinner first or second, instead of second or third 
— are advantages that come to every man on occasion, and are 
not especial to the honored one ; the one only advantage that 
is specially and exclusively his, is his being called out of the 
common. Well, now, is there anything in it ? I always be- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 22*^ 

lieved there was not — for it is a mere notion, or more prop- 
erly the mere notion of a notion, signifying nothing but a 
belief taken on trust and mostly unfounded, testifying to noth- 
ing but a falsehood, exhaling in breath, leaving nothing but a 
melodious twang which Sir Tom and My Lord know well must 
be a discord to any who has an ear for music. 

So I have always said to myself ; yet I am converted from 
to-day so far as this, that I am come near to understanding 
how it is that the twang is melodious to its beneficiary, if to 
nobody else. For here, at a large French watering-place, I 
have come shamefacedly into the largest hotel, a kind of town 
in itself, and have found myself absolutely its one sole occu- 
pant besides the proprietor and the waiters. I have been ac- 
customed to see two hundred people dine at its table cVhote, 
and when I asked the hour of dinner to-day I was requested to 
fix it myself. For / am now the table d'hdte, and, amused as 
I am at myself, I can't quite forbear a sense as of promotion at 
this distinction. It titillates me gently and caresses me to be 
asked, " A quelle heure, Monsieur, voudra-t-il la table d'hote ?" 
and I verily believe that if the same prostration before me of 
the whole physical, spiritual, and culinary resources of the 
place were habitually repeated, I should in time come to 
believe that I had done something to deserve it beyond being 
the only guest. What surprises me now, therefore, is that 
I have known melodiously twanged men who have not believed 
this of themselves. 

****** 

" Go where you will, you will never find the equal of what 
happens every day in this world." So said a French Emigre, 
and so to this day he might say. Now of all things that do 
happen in this world, the affectation, which I find is still 
common, of belief in the reasoning faculties, and of readiness 
to r,. nit things in general to their decision and to abide by 
their mandate — this is the most unmatched ; and I venture to 
believe that, when we do go elsewhere, we shall find in no 
sphere or planet, or any one of these countless worlds I see 



228 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

above me, anything like it. You and I know very well that 
we judge nothing by reason, but everything by the sympathies, 
the antipathies, the prejudices perhaps, which that series of 
chance events called our education has brought into activity 
within us. A matter as to which we care nothing, and which 
is therefore of self-confessed unimportance, we may indeed 
hand over contemptuously to reason. That two and two make 
four, that the two angles of a triangle are greater than the 
third, that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of re- 
flection, that the earth revolves on its axis — all this we will sub- 
mit to abstract investigation and decision ; for we care nothing 
which way it is decided. But whether this man is honest 
whom we have learned to hate, or that woman true whom we 
have learned to love — these are questions which reason shall 
not touch, and which shall be decided at any rate as we wish ; 
in other words, which have already been decided for us. 
In despite of which, we will go on declaring that we are reason- 
ing and reasonable animals, whereas in truth we are unreasona- 
ble, passionate, sentimental creatures, and nothing more. For 
which let God be praised who has made us such, and man be 
condemned who, even in this, the world's senility, has never dis- 
covered that such we are. 



CHAPTER LXII. 

On Board the Billy Baby, 

At Sea, November 20. 
There is this great advantage in cruising about during the 
winter, that you never want for wind ; but there is the question 
whether this is not counterbalanced by your having sometimes 
too much of it. It seems hard to leave one of these tidal ports, 
where you are out-of-doors at once and can't run back, with a 
rising glass and a fine fresh northerly breeze, only to find your- 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 229 

self reduced within a couple of hours to taking down every reef 
in your mainsail, and balancing yourself with a mere spitfire 
jib. Of course there is great deUght in the feeling that you 
are in a nice comfortable ship, instead of being on some cold 
bleak hill ashore, in a railway-carriage, or in the street of 
some town full of insecure chimney-pots ; but then at sea you 
always have the notion of something worse coming than you 
have yet had. I am short-handed, too, having lost one man of 
my crew, which amounts to forty per cent, on a full comple- 
ment of two and a half. Phil has capsized the Irish stew once 
and the coffee twice, and his final results are so gritty and un- 
certain that I suspect he must have mopped them both up 
together, instead of separately, to put them back into the 
saucepan. But then you can't have everything all at once. 
****** 

Sunday, November 21. 

I thought we never should get that anchor this morning— 
and also with Ned that it did " blow uncommon hard," and I 
have, besides, a mean opinion of myself for shirking the Looe. 
But you may prove to yourself as much as you like — on the 
chart— as I proved to myself last night, that you have only to 
run down to a line of bearing of your one light and then haul 
your wind to be safe ; you may demonstrate this most clearly ; 
and yet you may not face a channel half a mile wide on a pitch 
dark night with such a breeze blowing as there was then and 
still is. In such circumstances one says " of course if it were 
necessary I'd try it," but, then, what is to be the measure of 
the necessity ? Ought it to be necessary that the enemy were 
bound for your port, and you sent to give warning ; or should 
it not be sufficient that you want to see your Sweetheart six 
hours earlier ? ♦ 

****** 

Southampton, Tuesday, November 23. 
I remember, when I got that handsome ninety miles' tow in 
a dead calm this surame/, being ungrateful enough to remark 



^SO i'LOtSAM AND JETSAM. 

how absolutely useless any and every steamer must be as a 
school of seamanship. There was the monster steaming straight 
ahead, and I hanging on to her, both relieved absolutely from 
any necessity whatever for paying that constant, unceasing, 
vigilant attention to the wind and the weather which makes the 
good sailor. No need for vigilance in this respect, no need 
for foresight, no need for shifts and devices, no need for readi- 
ness of resource — the whole science of seamanship, as I felt, 
had disappeared, and in its place there was nothing left but a 
stoker and a steersman. Mind there was none, and no neces- 
sity for it beyond this ; for although in the original contrivance 
of the steam machinery there had been a mind, this had been 
left ashore, and here at sea there remained of it nothing but 
the rote-knowledge of the formula of stop-cocks, stoke-holes, 
and oil-cans. The charm of the thing was gone, one might as 
well be ashore, and I vowed that I would never be towed again. 
And I have seen now, within a very few hours, two striking 
proofs that steam is the end of seamanship. Yesterday after- 
noon I passed a large screw collier most inexcusably run ashore 
on Calshot Spit, close to the castle, where she had no earthly 
business to get, with Calshot Light to guide her, either by day 
or by night ; and this morning I had the delight of seeing a 
huge German Lloyd's steamer coming down from Southampton 
also run plump ashore opposite Netley. The point is, that 
there was no kind of excuse to be conceived for either one of 
these two blunders, and that they were both precisely the sort 
of blunders which could not occur to any man with a proper 
seaman's training. I am only sorry that they have both got 
off apparently without much damage. But if such things are 
done when there is not any excuse, what must be done every 
day when there is ? 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 231 



CHAPTER LXIII. 



On Board the Billy Baby, 

29th November. 

I KNEW a man who had found the two only pearls of price 

a true friend, and a good hrave woman. To the woman he 

plighted his troth, to his friend he wrote to ask for a blessing ; 
and then he saw what it was to have such an one. For the 
friend wrote liim thus— a letter which should be printed in let- 
ters of gold, and given for a fortune to every hesitating pair in 
England : 

" Yes, God bless you, and gunrd, and guide, and prosper 
you — a form of prayer which I have never offered up to God 
but for my own wife ; and if the girl you have chosen is in the 
future but one half the joy and pride that mine has been to 
me, you will have drawn the great prize in the lottery of life 
— a prize to which no other prizes are to be compared. My 
heart would have broken but for the most beautiful and sus- 
taining love of my wife. I should go out into the highways 
and byways and preach marriage to all men, in simple honesty 
and good-will toward my fellow-creatures, knowing what mar- 
riage has been to me. Heaven only knows what would have 
become of me but for a tenderness which has never tired, a 
devotion which has never failed me, and which has had in it 
something surely divine. 

" So I say with all my heart ' God bless you ! ' again and 
again ; and be of good courage. You will not want much 
money if you have much love. It is the right and duty of a 
man to support his wife, and it is better for both of them that 
he should be in every respect the headland mainstay of the 
family. There is nothing to fear in poverty when a roan's 
heart is whole and his affections satisfied. I was for a short 
time, as you know, very poor, and nothing has ever impressed 
me more forcibly than the fact that poverty, when it came so 
close, had no terrors for me. Moreover, the possibilities of 



232 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

life are infinite, and no man of enterprise, intelligence, and 
character need be poor. You and your wife will never be poor, 
and the only counsel I would give you, the outcome of years 
and experience, is ' Cultivate your affections and till your 
hearts.' There is no harvest so bounteous as that of love. 
Let no shadows come between you, no sulks, no misunder- 
standings, and no unkind words. Accustom yourselves (using 
a sort of resolute mental force when required, and it will be re- 
quired) to look upon each other as perfection. You are sure 
to have something, perhaps much, to forgive each other as 
time rolls on. Well, forgive — forgive freely — and with that 
sweet eager grace which forgives beforehand, and which offers 
assurance and warranty of all future forgiveness. If your be- 
trothed is very young be careful not to scare away her trust. 
Encourage her to tell you everything ; be father, mother, 
sister, husband to her. Approve her in all things, that she 
may conceal nothing, and lead her very gently away, without 
reproof, from anything which may displease or grieve you. 

*' And above all things, I would say, make her the compan- 
ion of your thoughts. Associate her both with your business 
and with your pleasures. Let her have no idle, listless days, 
no lonely evenings. Let her see that you are just and fair in 
all your dealings with her, so that when she compares other 
men with you she may feel that you are rather a hero than a 
man. Teach her to dress in her best and bravest for you, and 
make her glad with your admiration, so that all her life long 
she shall hear no such music as her husband's praise. On your 
part also dress better than ever you did in your life. Marriage 
should not be the grave of Hope, but Hope's garden. 

" Once more, God bless you !" 



November 30. 
It is a consoling thought which should alone, and of itself, 
redeem this much-maligned scheme of creation from all the evil 
that is, so hastily spoken of it, that we owe all our misery to 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 233 

ourselves and all our happiness to others. If I do my duty and 
act up to my warrant as fully as I can read it, even if that be 
not very fully, no man can truly take away by peace of mind. 
He may sadden me for a time, but my sadness is for him not 
for myself, and bears with it its own sure antidote. Say he 
betrays and deserts mo, deeply injures me, ruins me, kills me. 
/ know, and I alone, whether he does any of these things 
justly ; if so, I know then that I am the cause of all ; if not, 
it will be, as in all ages to all men it has been, a sufficient con- 
olation to know that I suffer unjustly, that I am punished 
without cause — and then I cannot be truly miserable. 

And now, just as there is something — and not a small thing 
either, for I know it — of pleasure in the worst earthly misery, 
so there seems to be something of poison in the best earthly 
happiness. You have struck the sweet note, it answers to the 
touch, and now even while your ears drink in the full, round, 
beautiful sound, you are aware of that after-twang which is as 
a vibration of pain. There shall be a man who is drunk with 
happiness — with happiness of the purest and most unalloyed 
kind — and that man as he walks through the streets shall be 
moved with tears to see all those men and women going about 
their avocations, and to know that they cannot be as happy 
as he. 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

On Board the Billy Baby, 

20th December. 
Say what you will, it is a fine thing to be married, were it 
only that it always seems to bring with it the lesson, even in 
the merest and most trifling of the congratulations, ay, and of 
the presents it brings, that the world is far kinder than in its 
usual aspects it seems. My friend, who is in this case, has re- 



234 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

ceived another letter from his friend, and it is so true, so wise, 
and so touching, that I give it here ; let those laugh at it who 
can, it is a dower any bride might be proud of. 

*' December 3, 1875. 
" My Dear Friend : 

*' I also do not read your letters unmoved. It brings my 
own youth and hopes back again to see you so young and so 
brave. And what you say is right about the fulness of happi- 
'ness which a true-hearted girl brings with her as a dower from 
heaven. Never suffer yourself or her to forget that there is 
nothing really worth having in this world but love — for love is 
joy, and neither money nor the gains of ambition have the taste 
of pleasure in them. Money makes all but very high-hearted 
folk intolerably impudent ; ambitious dreams realized make 
men either proud or sad — bumptious if they are selfish, sad if 
they sought for power as a means of doing good, and find 
themselves as impotent as before when they have got but the 
shadow of it, which is all that can be had in this world. 

" Therefore, cling firmly all your life long to the home affec- 
tions. There will be always peace at your own hearth if you 
seek it honestly. There is no peace elsewhere ; and it seems 
to me as though a man should go forth to his daily labor as to 
a task which he must do, and return home to cast up his ac- 
counts with God at night. There, when the flowers cluster 
round his open window, and the pet bird sings in summer-time, 
or when the curtains are drawn, and the sea-coal burns in the 
familiar fireplace on winter evenings, while the disinherited 
and the miserable wander homeless through the dark cold 
without, he may thank the Giver of all good for exceptional 
grace and mercy with a very humble spirit, and ask his wife to 
help him while they search if they have not soothed some 
human anguish, dried some tear, and made some one happier 
! or better since last they lay down to rest. If they have, their 
slumbers will be very light, for they will sleep beneath the smile 
of God, 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 235 

*' And now let me say to you that if you will take me for a 
guide in life while I remain here, there is nothing which I 
would more earnestly commend to you than the daily practice 
of prayer. Never go to your work or return from it, never sit 
down to your table or rise from it, without a brief appeal or 
thanksgiving to heaven. You will find that piety will thus 
become a habit to you, and that the practice of reading the 
lessons for the day every morning will give a nobler key-note 
to your mind. It will put your thoughts in harmony with 
those of all wise and good men, and with all worthy woman- 
hood. It will be of infinite comfort to you in those times of 
trial when all of us must pay tribute to our mortality. It will 
give you fortitude in adversity, and secure you in prosperity. 

*' When you remember this counsel, dear boy, as I trust you 
will do, even should you reject it for a time, think of it, not as 
the advice of a pedant ot a churchman, but as the innermost 
thought which a world-worn old diplomatist expressed to a 
friend whom he loved, and in whose welfare and career he took 
a very tender and true interest. 

** Some fifteen years ago I was very intimate with the late 
Baron Prokesch-Osten, then Austrian Internunico at Constan- 
tinople. He was one of the best and wisest men I have every 
known, and he was then seventy-five years old. I remember 
he once said to me, * There is nothing true but Christianity, 
and every really able man I have ever known has arrived sooner 
or later at this conclusion.' Bear it, therefore, steadily in 
mind, and recollect that it comes to you from two generations 
of diplomatists, who both agreed with the priests. ' ' 
* * * ^- * * 

In craft of my size it is a usual thing, when you have let go 
the anchor, for all hands to go ashore and get drunk, leaving 
the vessel to look after herself. Nevertheless, I have been 
taught in the course of my nautical education that the anchor- 
watch is of great importance, and that not only should there 
always be a band on deck to tend her when she swings, and, 
if necessary, to hoist a bit of sail that she may cast the right 



236 FLOTSAM AN-D JETSAM. 

way, but that there are many possible events to be provided for 
even in the best anchorages — such as another vessel running 
into you — which require constant attention for their avoidance. 
Yet it is hard to get this into one's head, and, anchored 
here as we are in the most quiet and peaceable of rivers 
preparatory to laying up, it seems impossible to suppose but 
that all we have to do now is to go ashore and amuse our- 
selves, retaining only the memory of our cruises for fireside 
yarns. 

At any rate here, for the present, is an end of Flotsam and 
Jetsam. It has been often foolish, no doubt, sometimes pre- 
sumptuous, and betimes flat and dull. Perhaps, nevertheless, 
it may have interested some as being the true reflection of the 
derelict thoughts of a man small enough himself, but brought 
betimes into contact with great things, and feeling somewhat 
the greatness of them, and feeling also, and at the same time, 
the constraining influence of the little things of his daily life. 
They are not very unlike that man, and so may be like many 
another, which, if it be so, will give them a value to that other 
as though he himself had kept such a disjointed, often mis- 
taken, and always to be corrected, dead reckoning of his 
course. I myself cannot look back to them without a certain 
feeling of tenderness and affection, much as a painter might 
look upon an ill-daubed, unfinished portrait of part of himself 
by himself, nor without the same kind of regret both that the 
original was not better, and that the portrait w^as not better 
painted. Yet I think that, if ever a man had a chance of see- 
ing what he himself is like, it is when he is living by himself 
in this kind of way, or in some way like it ; and that, if at 
all, it would be by keeping a record of such idle thoughts as 
are here put down, as and when they are provoked by his re- 
flections, his work, and his communion with Nature, and that 
better part of man which is found in books. Doubtless, these 
thoughts are not sufficient for a life, yet they have an interest 
if they are unforced honest thoughts ; and possibly figments 
of the brain even such as these, floating and drifting at mercy 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 237 

as they have done, may haply be picked up and help some 
mariner to piece out and patch up his ship. 

Once more I hear the ripple of the water against the bows of 
the little ship that has carried me so well, and been my one 
only true home for so many months ; once more I have that 
feeling that the world is before me to go where I will, and no 
man to say me nay ; once more I look around my narrow 
limits and rejoice in them as those of my own kingdom. In a 
few days she will be dismantled, stripped, her white wings 
gone, her crew dispersed, and the whole economy and principle 
of the thing changed. It is as a kind of death ; yet, as the 
natural, proper, and desirable death, which is a passage from a 
good world and a happy life to a better and a happier. 



CHAPTER LXV. 

On Board the Lively Sally, 

CowES, 2d December, 1881. 
You may say what you like, but there is no abode for rest, 
occupation, sport, variety, and interest like a good stout ship. 
When I think of people staying in country houses to shoot 
poultry, and of other people living in town and going to plays 
and fancying that they are making the best of their lives — I 
can only wonder that they should content themselves with such 
things, when they might be comfortably installed in a fifty-ton 
cutter bound for a pleasant winter's cruise. Houses, no doubt, 
are to some extent necessary evils. There are women, chil- 
dren, parsons, politicians, and other weak vessels to be pro- 
vided for ; there are spare-sails, spars, blocks, and gear that 
have to be kept in store ; and of course there are nautical 
almanacs and other things which can conveniently be attended to 
ashore. But what is so odd is that even in this country, which 



238 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

calls itself maritime, there are people who fancy that a house 
is the best place to live in, and that a ship is merely a 
contrivance for making occasional journeys in fine weather ! 
Of course the only thing to be done for such people is 
either to elect them Members of Parliament or to pray for 
them. 

Meantime here we are all ready for a start across the Bay. 
The water is filled ; there are potatoes and cunningly-preserved 
meats and three live ducks on board ; there is a splendid 
moon, which must by no means be wasted, at a time when the 
night lasts for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four — and as a 
matter almost of course the wind hangs in the one quarter that 
won't do for us. One would imagine that after blowing from 
the S.W. for a month on end, it would show some signs of 
change — but so far nothing will move it. Every day we flatter 
ourselves we detect hopeful signs of its going round to the 
westward, and so up to N. or N.E. It ought to do so, for 
during the last three days the barometer has been steadily ris- 
^^S 5 y^t i^ ^® ^^i^^ nailed fast in the old quarter, and every 
harbor on the south coast is full of wind-bound vessels, bound, 
like ourselves, down Channel. There are a score here from 
the biggest to the littlest, and you may see the crews loafing 
about ashore in that aimless way which marks the sailor who 
is hung up by the weather. Then the Yankees have promised 
us another hurricane between to-day and the day after to-mor- 
row ! Will it come ? I doubt it ; but certainly the weathei 
is wild and far from encouraging. In sheer desperation we re- 
call experiences of how, when the wind backs too much and 
gets beyond S., it sometimes tumbles, as it were, over the 
edge, and gets into the finer quarter in spite of itself. We 
cheerfully reflect that it can't blow forever, and that unless 
there is an extraordinary stock of spare wind somewhere we 
must soon get to the end of it. Finally Dick, the mate, who 
is of a somewhat despondent turn, remarked to-day that he 
thought, he did, that there " must be an easterly wind just at 
the back of this here ;" and, in short, we have pretty well hoped 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 239 

ourselves into a conviction that there will be a change to- 
morrow. 

The smart triflers who so admire Cowes during the fine fort- 
night of the year, would hardly know it in winter. All that 
hoisting and hauling down of bunting, ringing of bells, and 
pulling ashore in four-oared gigs, which is supposed to repre- 
sent the whole art of navigation and seamanship, is entirely 
absent. In the roads there lie no dapper yachts, but only a 
few disconsolate chassemarees, a Norwegian bark with her bul- 
warks and boats carried away, and her royals and top-gallant 
sails hanging in ribbons from the yards. The yacht skipper, 
elegantly bound in brass, no longer is seen on the shore, and 
the Squadron Club-house is a scene of desolation, presided over 
by William and a strong body of painters and other British 
workmen. In the streets you meet a few uncouth men inartis- 
tically clad in sea-boots and mufflers, who have come ashore 
from the wind-bound vessels in the roads ; beyond that the 
place is deserted, and might be Falmouth or any other real sea- 
port for all its appearance. 

The Lively Sally is the very picture of what a fifty-ton cutter 
should be. She is what would be called a thoroughly " whole- 
some" vessel. In form, and in the smallness of her mast and 
spars, she would remind you of a North Sea smack, and, as to 
sea-going qualities, she would drown three quarters of the 
yachts and five eighths of the big steamers afloat. She is put 
together like a light-ship for strength, and she is found as very 
few vessels are, everything being about as big and as strong 
again as is usually the case with the fine-weather yacht. Her 
crew are not yachtsmen — they are sailors, which is quite another 
thing — and she is kept with the utmost jealousy and perfection. 

As for me, I am only a passenger on board. The effect of 
this position is to make one feel that the vessel may do any- 
thing and go anywhere, since one is not responsible. This is 
a pleasant sensation, but I have not yet quite arrived at the 
stage of being on board ship without feeling ready to turn out 
and be on deck at a moment's notice. 



240 FLOTSAM AlTD JETSAM. 

3d December. 
The wind has taken up from the S.E. ; but there is scarce 
any of it ; so we give it another day. 

4 th December. 
Now we really are off. 

Monday, 5th December. 

Not a bit of it. We are not off at all, but still here. 
Being only a passenger I am of course impatient ; but still I 
can understand and sympathize with the skipper. I know well 
the effort required to come to a decision in the face of unprom- 
ising signs, and the temptation to hold on till they look better. 
Here we have the captain of the port with assurances that the 
wind is S. W. outside, and doleful accounts of vessels that 
have just come in ; Dick saying he don't like the looks of it, 
he don't ; the bread not on board and he bakers not yet out of 
bed ; the barometer a shade on the fall ; that Yankee predic- 
tion ; the wind sensibly getting back to the south even in here 
— and now there's a good hour of the ebb tide gone — oh, hang- 
it, we'll hang on for another day and see what the morning 
brings. We shall be quite ready then, and can go out at once. 
So that's off one's mind. After all you must be somewhere, 
and better here than thrashing about outside and making no 
progress. We'll see if we can't get that stove to draw a bit, 
and make ourselves comfortable. 

What one really wants in order to start with confidence is a 
number of conditions, all together. 1. The wind must be in 
any quarter but the S.W. 2. But it must not be W., because 
you have got to go down channel. 3. Nor S., because that 
breeds "dirt." 4. Nor S. E., because you never knew that 
come to any good. 5. In fact, it must be N. or N.E. 6. 
And it must have got into that quarter through W. or N.W. 
Y. And the barometer must be high. 8. But not too high. 
9. It must be rising. 10. But not too fast. 11. The sky 
must not be thick. 12. And yet the sun must not be glaring, 
for that is a bad sign. 13. The Yankees must not have pre- 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 241 

dieted anything. 14. And then, if we go on too long with 
fine weather, there will be another breeze due. 15. Dick must 
be satisfied with the look of things — which never happened 
yet. 16. Bills of health, bread, meat, water, and the rest 
must all be on board. 17. Then there's the moon ; you must 
have that, these long nights. 18. But by the time you get 
the weather and Dick and the provisions into order, there is 
no moon left. 

In short, there are so many conditions, that if one insists on 
having them all favorable in the middle of winter, one runs 
great risk of never getting away at all. But we shall get some 
of them, and chance the rest, I suppose. 



CHAPTER LXVI. 

On Board the Lively Sally, 
At Sea, Sunday, 11th December, 1881. 

" Well, there's one thing, we kin go out if so be as you 
like." 

This was Dick's not very encouraging way of summing up 
the situation when, last Tuesday, the Skipper had hardened his 
heart and got under way with the wind still in the S. W. , and 
when we had got as far as Yarmouth. It certainly looked 
dirty, and the collation of various opinions, including mine, 
for putting our nose out, ended in our bearing up, running 
back to Cowes, and anchoring once more in the roads. I am 
bound to testify that the event fully justified the Skipper, for in 
the evening it blew a whole gale from S.\Y' 

The odd thing about it all is, that while things have been so 
bad the barometer has been high and steady. In fact, as Dick 
says, *' the weather fare to beat the glasses." Last night, 
however, there came a fog, and the wind began at length to 
blow from the northward. Therewith the glass fell, but this 



24:2 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

morning the wind stood and freshened, and driving snow 
seemed to promise a real beginning of winter. So at half-past 
ten we set our snug trysail and sqaaresail and got under way ; 
this time for a real start. The snow whitened the uplands of 
the Isle of Wight, and made everything so thick that we could 
barely see a mile. Sea-boots and oil-skins and thick woollens 
underneath notwithstanding, one felt — as indeed one always 
does at sea — shrivelled up to nothing, and as though one 
had nothing on that nothing. By half-past one we were 
abreast of the Needles, and, carrying a fine slashing breeze 
with us, we made Portland lights at half -past five, and by half- 
past one this morning were four miles off the Start, whence 
we took our departure, bade good-by to the land, and set the 
course W.S.W. 

As I have said, I am upon this occasion not in command, 
but only a passenger ; yet I am expected to work my passage, 
and it is my business to keep the reckoning. To-day I have 
worked it up to noon with the result that there is only half a 
mile difference between my latitude by observation and by 
dead-reckoning. The wind is steady at about N.N.E., and as 
the weather looks tine the Skipper, on my representation, has 
indulged in the dangerous extravagance of a single-reefed 
mainsail, which is against his principles, for he maintains, and 
with good reason, that it is not sound cutter-sailing to run 
under a mainsail in the winter time in this part of the world. 

Monday, 12th December. 
Our reckoning to-day puts us sixty-five miles west of 
TJshant. This is a good berth off in all conscience, and in 
these days of steam, when it is the fashion to go from point 
to point and to make all the lights, it may seem that we are 
too far to the westward. If it were a mistake it would be one 
on the right side, for I need not tell the inhabitants of a mari- 
time country that it is not the sea, but the land, that is dan- 
gerous to the navigator. It is, however, no mistake at all, but 
a wise precaution. You can't get too far to the westward when 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 243 

crossing the Bay in a sailing vessel, for you then have every- 
thing under command. And especially is it well to be far out- 
side Ushant and Finisterre, for about those points there is 
almost always bad, thick weather. 

"We are now fairly at sea. The big Atlantic billows are 
rolling in from the westward, and the little ship rides up and 
down their sides, now perched on the summit, and now low 
down far below view of the horizon. Our deck is limited, for 
there are the two boats carried on it, and then there are the 
three white ducks who pass their time in pecking at each other 
and quacking over their mess of barley-meal. One hour would 
be very like another, were it not for hauling in the log, mark- 
ing the movements of the barometer, and, above all, watching 
the sky for signs of the weather. What a book it is ! How 
rich, how changing ! If I could describe our sunrise of this 
morning you would think it worth while to come here on the 
mere chance of seeing such another. The gray twilight, the 
ruddier dawn, the gold and purple-edged masses of cloud on 
the horizon, and the tinier cloudlets overhead shepherded by 
the N.W. wind into long droves, the fresh crispness of the air, 
the saltness of it, the purity of it, tlie sense of freedom and 
ease ! Ah ! yes, there is that about the sea which no laud 
can ever give. 

At Sea, Wednesday, 14th December. 

The wind has got round into the old quarter of S. W. ; the 
glass is falling ; it is thick of rain, and the sea is getting up. 
We have therefore taken in the mainsail, and got snug again 
under the trysail and third jib. The sun has not shown him- 
self, and so we have no observation to-day, but the dead-reck- 
oning puts us about two thirds across the Bay, and well out. 
The little ship is too much on the jump to permit of any 
triumphs of cookery being achieved, and our dinner has been 
a scratch affair of cold beef and sardines, washed down 
by a bottle of champagne. But we have killed one of the 
white ducks, and when we get finer weather we will eat 
him. 



244 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

Thursday, 15th December. 

No sun again to-day, and therefore no observation. The 
weather is of that disagreeable kind one always finds about 
capes like Finisterre, which just out into the sea ; but in the 
night the wind veered to N.N.E., and it is now steady, 
though slight, at N.E., with constant squalls, and an overcast 
and threatening sky. 

Friday, 16th December. 

To-day we have had a bit of a dusting. In the night the 
wind backed to the dirty old quarter, S.W. There was one of 
those big rings round the moon that always promise bad 
weather, and the sun rose very red and threatening. We had 
put ourselves — by dead-reckoning, for we have had no sun at 
noon since Tuesday — a good seventy miles to the west of Cape 
Finisterre ; but at half-past nine this morning we made land, 
which can only be the high mountain inside of that cape, dis- 
tant, as far as we can judge, no more than thirty miles. This 
puts us no less than forty miles to the eastward of our dead- 
reckoning. It is no doubt to be accounted for by the inset 
into the Bay of Biscay, which, when it exists, runs at the rate 
of a mile an hour. But, as it does not always exist, one never 
knows whether to allow for it or not. Here is seen the wis- 
dom of keeping well to the westward. Had we steered a 
course with the view of making Finisterre and passing close to 
it, steamer-wise, we should be by this time, not off Finisterre, 
but off Corunna or Cape Ortegal, forty miles to leeward ! 

About twelve o'clock I was on the rail, lashed to a davit, 
and vainly endeavoring at once to keep my sextant dry and to 
catch the sun between the clouds and the horizon, between the 
big waves that rose up and kept washing it out. The wind had 
freshened constderably, and was blowing three parts of a gale. 
The sea had got up too, a school of porpoises were playing 
about our bows, and the two white ducks were huddled up in a 
corner of the hen-coop. It was no easy matter to stand on the 
wet and slippery deck as the litle ship put her nose into the 
seas. The sky seemed to have come down on to the top of the 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 245 

mast, and had that dull, leaden, greasy look which usually por- 
tends a real good hustler. With our topmast housed, trysail, 
small foresail, and third jib, we should have been snug enough ; 
but, as the weather still got worse, we hove to at one o'clock, 
took the bonnet off the foresail, set the fourth jib, and made 
sail again on the starboard tack. She was pretty lively at it, 
everything fetched way in the cabins, the crockery began mak- 
ing a concert in the pantry, and, when one was below, the only 
thing was to sit down to leeward on the cabin floor, consult the 
chart, and hope for better weather. This has gone on all day, 
but things have got no worse, and now, at 6 p.m., the wind 
has veered to N.W., and moderated a bit, which I attribute to 
our having sailed on the starboard tack out of one of those 
Yankee *' disturbances." 

Saturday, 17th December. 

Quite a fine day again, though there is still a good deal of 
sea running. But the wind stands at N.W., and as there is a 
sun, I have at last got observations both for latitude and 
longitude, after an interval of four days without either. To- 
day, too, we have eaten the duck, and on the whole things 
look quite prosperous. 

Sunday, 18th December. 

Another fine day with a nice breeze from the W., and also a 
bit of the sun amiable enough to show himself at noon. At 
two o'clock we made land, bearing S.E. by S., opined by 
Dick to be the Burlings, but evidently, as an inspection from 
the mast-head showed, the mountains of Cintra over the Rock 
of Lisbon. At dark this was put beyond question by our mak- 
ing the Rock of Lisbon light. But here comes another aggra- 
vating element of uncertainty ; for on timing the revolutions 
of the light, I find it revolves in two minutes and a half, 
instead of revolving — as according to the sailing directions and 
the latest light- book it should — in one minute and three quar- 
ters. Hereupon has ensued that anxious reasoning out of bear- 
ings and courses and possible insets, by which one strives to 
arrive at a conclusion — the result of which is that we have de- 



246 FLOTSAM AliTD JETSAM. 

cided that there must either have been a change made in the 
light and not published, or else that the machinery has got 
wrong or wants oiling, and has thus become irregular in its in- 
tervals — which is not by any means a rare occurrence with 
Portuguese lights. But, by taking two bearings and the dis- 
tance run between them, I put our distance from the light at 
no more than twenty miles, which again places us ten miles 
further to the eastward than our reckoning made us. Oh, 
these insets ! 

Monday, 19th December. 

A nice westerly wind and a smooth sea tempt us again to set 
our mainsail, which brings us at noon within sight of that fine 
landmark, Monchiqua ; and now at five o'clock we are off Cape 
St. Vincent, and going the, for us, marvellous rate of five 
knots. The air is warm and genial, the sea is like a mill-pond, 
and below one is hardly aware that the vessel is under way, so 
smoothly does she run. The P. and O. steamer that left 
Gravesend last Wednesday passed us off Cape St. Vincent, a 
day later. I doubt we shall find she had a breeze to the north- 
ward of us last Friday. 

Tuesday, 20th December. 

So far as the sun goes, we might as well have been in Eng- 
land, for during the eleven days we have now been out we 
have only had him properly out at all four times, and during 
these last three days we have never seen him at all. As, how- 
ever, v/e have now got a new departure from Cape St. Vincent, 
we care but little about him. And, though the sky is so over- 
cast, the weather is marvellously fine, and warm as an English 
June. 

"Wednesday, 21st December, 10.15a.m. 

We made Cape Spartel light at one o'clock this morning and 
Cape Trafalgar soon after ; and, having duly shown our ensign 
to the Spanish fort at Tarifa Point — the failure to do which the 
proud Spaniard occasionally rewards with a round shot — we are 
now running into Gibraltar bay, and smartening up to go ashore. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 247 

For tho depth of winter the voyage has been a very fine one, 
of exactly eleven days, and I don't know how one could spend 
eleven days better. I look forward with something like horror 
to the renewal of letters and newspapers, from which we have 
been delivered during this time. It is such a rest to be with- 
out those triumphs of civilization. 



CHAPTER LXYII. 

On Board the Lively Sally, 

Gibraltar, 24th Dec. 1881. 
Whenever I get abroad I find it impossible not to feel proud 
of my countrymen. They may seem commonplace and vulgar 
enough in England ; but put them down among foreigners in 
a foreign country, and upon my word they look like lords of 
the human race. Here at Gibraltar one is especially struck 
by this. The narrow and tortuous streets are filled with dirty 
little shrimps of Spaniards got up to represent Parisian dandies, 
lemon-colored Italians, coarse-fibred Germans, swarthy Portu- 
guese, stalwart Maltese, and turbancd and dignified Moors ; 
but among them all the fair-haired, blue-eyed Englishman 
walks with the lordly air of a man among women and children. 
Charley from Aldershot, at whom we shoot forth gibes when 
he appears in the Park, looks here so clean, so Avell-groomed, 
so well-dressed, as he saunters grandly with his bull-terrier at 
his heels, that one feels inclined to embrace him and ask one- 
self to dine at his mess that very evening. Even Tommy Atkins 
is transfigured, and the smartest and dandiest little Spaniard 
ever got up to kill, looks a wretched being beside Tommy, 
wrestling in his shirt-sleeves and overalls with the construction 
of a shanty or the laying out of Lord Napier's last new garden. 
The very seamen, ashore from the colliers, bearded and sea- 
booted as they are, have an air of quiet dignity about them as 



248 FLOTSAM AN^D JETSAM. 

compared with the men of the other countries that are so liber- 
ally represented here. I fancy that, if a man came down to 
Gibraltar from the moon, wanting a score of men he could trust 
not to lie to him or to desert him in an emergency, he would 
stand in the street here and pick out twenty Englishmen. 
Indeed, the Moors — who may be almost considered as inhabi- 
tants of another planet — do unhesitatingly prefer the English 
to all other people. Perhaps, however, that may be because 
we buy their cattle and eggs. 

The people of Gibraltar are, I am told, far from prosperous 
just now. They want, it is said, two things — rain, and a rev- 
olution in Spain. The want of rain shows itself very plainly, 
for everything on the rock is dry and dusty. The revolution 
in Spain, on the other hand, is required for the sake of trade. 
Gibraltar, being a free port, is a great depot for all the goods 
that are wanted by the Spaniards, and that are prevented from 
reaching them by the heavy and, indeed, prohibitory duties 
imposed by the Spanish Government. There is in all times a 
certain amount — though now less than formerly there was — of 
smuggling which tempers in some degree the tariff to the 
shorn Spaniard ; but when a proper good pronunciamiento 
takes place, then comes the great opportunity of the Rock 
scorpion. The carabineros and custom-house officers, who 
guard the frontier of Spain, being on such occasions doubtful 
which side is going to win, prudently hold aloof, and give 
themselves a severe holiday till the question is settled as to 
which side is to be the Rebellion and which the Government. 
For several days, therefore, the frontier is not guarded at all, 
and the beneficent laws of Free Trade have full play. Then is 
seen a great crowd of carts, wagons, calesas, men, women, and 
children, hurrying and jostling through the narrow gate of 
Gibraltar, with the goods that the Spaniard buys. In a short 
time all the stores that have accumulated on the Rock are run 
into Spain, the profits are great, and the Gibraltar people rub 
their hands over well-filled pockets, till a period of quiet brings 
again the carabiriero and the guarda costa into action. It is 



FLOTSAM AN^D JETSAM. 249 

not merely the carpets of Mr. Bright and the screws of Mr. 
Chamberlain that are thus provided for the Spaniard, but many 
other products of our favored isle ; and at the last Spanish 
Revolution, in the midst of the surging, fightmg, blaspheming 
crowd that was pressing through the gate, was seen a well- 
known Presbyterian parson who, with the wisdom of the ser- 
pent, was taking advantage of the providential period of anar- 
chy to run his stock of Bibles into Spain. The Society for Pro- 
moting Contraband Knowledge could hardly improve upon that. 

The remarkable fact about Gibraltar is, that the most fervent 
advocates of the English occupation of the Rock are the Span- 
iards themselves. They would not for anything see it pass 
again under the dominion of their own Government. And the 
reason is simlpe enough. Gibraltar is the one point of secur- 
ity and stability in the Spanish peninsula. It is at once the 
safe and the refuge of the whole south of Spain. The Span- 
iards bank there because they know that, once under the Eng- 
lish guns, their cash is safe, which it is very far from being 
wherever there is a Spanish oflficial. And when the periodical 
storm of revolution and throat-cutting breaks, they bear up 
and run for the Rock as one man, knowing as they do that they 
may there count upon the hospitality and protection of the 
English. Half the notable public men of Spain have been our 
guests here at one time or another, and whatever they may say 
in the Cortes to please the people of the north of Spain, who 
are too far from the Rock to fly to it or to smuggle from it, 
they would be in truth very much alarmed if they foresaw any 
serious probability of the shutting up of so precious a bolt-hole. 
But they know that there neither is nor can be any serious 
probability of such a catastrophe ; and, therefore, they readily 
earn a little cheap popularity by advocating, in rolling and so- 
norous Castilian periods, that expulsion of the English and re- 
sumption by Spain of the Rock which they are well assured 
will never be effected. 

The same thino; is true of the smuijtrlino:, over which so much 
virtuous indignation has recently been expended. It is not 



250 FLOTSAM AifD JETSAM. 

the English who smuggle, but the Spaniards themselves ; and 
neither English nor Spaniards could do it at all were it not 
for the connivance of the Spanish guards and custom-house 
officers. Nobody who wishes to run a cargo thinks of braving 
or even of giving the slip to the custom-house guards — for it is 
so very easy to buy them. It is ail a matter of business. You 
pay so much for the beach for so many hours, and during that 
time nobody will hear or see anything of what you may do at 
the place agreed upon. But there is more than this. So cor- 
rupt are the custom-house officials that they positively will not 
let you pay the regular duties of the tariff. If you insist — as 
an Englishman at a certain port of the south of Spain has re- 
cently insisted — upon doing so, they simply " Boycott" you, 
place every impediment in your way, and render it practically 
impossible for you to carry on your trade. But pay half, or a 
quarter, of the duties, and give the officials a share of the sum 
saved, and the impediments all disappear as by magic. In ad- 
dition to this, you must be prepared on each voyage to bring 
little parcels of cheese, butter, and cutlery for the subordi- 
nates, and then you will find everything run as smoothly as pos- 
sible. These are facts for which, if necessary, I could give 
names, dates, and places ; and as long as such things are, it is 
more than ridiculous for anybody to suppose that the Span- 
iards have any grievance in such smuggling as still takes place. 
It is their business — as it is the business of the French and our 
other neighbors — to protect their own revenue, and if they 
would either reform their tariff or pay their officers a salary 
that would hold body and soul together, there would be no 
difficulty whatever in doing it. But to ask, as some, not 
Spaniards but Englishmen, do, that England should make reg- 
ulations for English territory in order to protect Spain from 
the consequences of her own corruption, is absurd. 

If the possession of Gibraltar by the English is recognized as 
a blessing to the Spaniards, it requires but little to make it rec- 
ognized as a blessing to the world at large. Hitherto there has 
been, and even now there is, too great a disposition to treat it 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 261 

simply and solely as a fortress, and to withhold rather than to 
grant those facilities which might make it what by its position 
it should be, one of the great trading centres of the world. 
For instance, it is a fact, though to some it will seem scarcely 
credible, that there is at this moment no such thing as a dry- 
dock at Gibraltar, and, indeed, no means of repairing and re- 
fitting vessels that come in crippled by bad weather. Any 
number of such vessels do come into the bay, both from the 
Mediterranean and from the Atlantic, in the course of the year ; 
but there is no means of doing anything for them, beyond, 
perhaps, providing a spar, and for any serious repairs they 
must go, either to Malta or to Cadiz. Yet there is, in the 
Camber by the New Mole, an excellent site for a graving dock, 
and if it were made it would be a priceless boon, not merely to 
the trading vessels of all nations, but also to our own men-of- 
war, and it would be an addition of great weight to the reasons 
why the retention of Gibraltar by the English is a benefit to all 
mankind. Again, the New Mole is not yet finished, and, what 
is worse, is that the works by which it was to be completed are 
entirely suspended, and present a dismal array of deserted der- 
ricks and loose stones. Meantime an enormous expense is 
being incurred in getting out two hundred-ton guns from Eng- 
land, and a further expense of several thousands of pounds will 
have to be incurred in getting them into position. This may 
be necessary — I don't say it is not — but the Graving Dock 
and the completion of the New Mole are at least equally neces- 
sary, and, as a matter of policy, are even more pressing. 



CHAPTER LXVIII.^ 

Tangier, Morocco, 28th December, 1881. 
Our fussy, fevered, worrying Western civilization is doubt- 
less a necessary blessing ; and that incapacity for enjoying, or 
even possessing, anything which results from our always being 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

in a iiurry to get at something else, is, I suppose^ one of ito 
greatest advantages. Yet when one gets a breath of the rag- 
ged, poor, patient, unprogressing East, one cannot but feel 
that there is a charm and a repose about it which railways, 
telegraphs, cheap newspapers, and Party government can never 
afford. Look at this little Tangier. It is a mere collection of 
low white houses lying on the Barbary coast in the Straits of 
Gibraltar, and not above thirty miles distant from the Rock. 
You may come here from thence in something under four hours 
by the Hercules tug ; and when you land you find that you 
have left Wapping and Woolwich for a new world. The Sul- 
tan of Morocco is not precisely what would be called a highly 
civilized or progressive Sovereign, and though the soil is rich 
and fertile his people are very poor. But on every hand there 
is an air of dignity, of calm, and even of content, such as you 
would look for in vain among the cities of the West. The 
streets are steep, dirty, ill -paved with the most knobbly stones, 
and go crookedly round endless corners ; the shops are holes 
in the wall of the size of dog-kennels — but the men are mar- 
vels of quiet dignity and grace. Most of them are ragged, all 
of them are poor, but in spite of all there is something grand 
about all of them. It is, I suppose, partly due to the turban 
and the flowing white or brown jeelah in which they drape 
themselves with so much dignity ; but it must be much more 
due to their views of life, to their sobriety and simplicity, and 
to the fact that, like all Mussulmans, they believe in their relig- 
ion. It is noteworthy that they are almost all — except, of 
course, the black-fezzed Jews — clean in their persons, however 
ragged in their dress. In Europe we wear clean coats over 
dirty bodies ; in the East they possess clean bodies under dirty 
coats. Many of them are extremely handsome, with their fine 
eyes and blue, shaven heads ; and it is a fact that among these 
people a European clad in the hat and breeches of the West 
looks a shameful and vulgar object. 

Three days ago there was held here the Moorish market or 
fair, which made the hillside outside the towu a most animated 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 253 

spectacle. Scores of camels from the interior, laden with dates, 
grain, leather, and country produce, stood or knelt about the 
ground. Near the gate squatted a number of vvhite-clad- 
women, each holding her hdik or robe with one hand over her 
mouth to complete the covering of the bead, and bargaining 
with some other for the half a dozen eggs and the fowl that 
constituted her whole stock in trade, and that she had brought 
perhaps ten or fifteen miles to sell. Further on, the banging 
of drums and the shrill sounds of the reed-pipe announced a 
band of A'lssouas, round whom was formed an admiring circle. 
In the centre a half -naked snake-charmer danced and shouted 
wildly, invoking with an unceasing iteration his patron saint. 
After a time, stooping down to what looked like a bundle of 
rags, he made passes over it with some dirty charms that hung 
round his neck, and putting in his hand, drew forth by the tail 
a snake at least a couple of yards long. After apostrophizing 
and exciting the reptile, which showed a disagreeable desire to 
wriggle toward my side of the circle, he put forth his tongue 
and allowed the snake to bite it, a feat which both man and 
snake seemed equally to enjoy. Then he cut himself with a 
knife, after which he began his dancing again, and as I passed 
at dusk I found him still at it, with apparently unabated energy. 
A desire to see something of the judicial system of Morocco 
made me pay a visit, first to a gentleman who sat in a hole in 
the wall, and who I was informed was the Jewish judge, or, as 
I understand, a kind of police magistrate. The judge was at 
that moment engaged in disposing of some case ; but when he 
saw me, he summarily convicted the defendant, and addressed 
himself to saluting my unworthy self. I was much flattered at 
such a mark of attention, and was wondering why it was never 
paid to me in my own country, when tl\c judge produced a 
silver charm in the shape of a hand and tried to sell it to me at 
five times its value. On this I fled to the Moorish tribunal at 
the gate of the town. This was held in a small room some ten 
feet square, on the floor of which sat the Deputy-Governor of 
the town — a grave and dignified man in the conical red fez of 



264 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

the country. By the side of the room squatted two of his 
friends, and just inside the doorway, which was open, and 
around which chistered the " public," were two suitors. The 
suitors were both talking together, in an excited manner and 
with much gesticulation ; occasionally one of the public vol- 
unteered a remark ; then the friends began to take an interest 
in the matter, and also began to speak ; and finally the grave 
judge, having vainly motioned first to one and then to the 
other to keep silent, gave his decision in the midst of a general 
row. At a later hour, as I passed this way again and looked 
through the open door, I found the court asleep on the bench, 
while suitors and soldiers outside were patiently awaiting the 
end of his siesta. The prison is hard by, and contains some 
three hundred miserable objects clanking about in fetters, a 
large proportion of whom neither know, nor ever will know, 
why they have been shut up. 

Among other things that the helpless stranger must allow 
himself to be shown here is one of the Moorish cafh. They 
represent the whole of the dissipation and public amusements 
of the place, which are of a very simple-minded character. 
The cafe, is a room with a dado and flooring of matting. From 
the low roof hang a score of cages of singing birds ; in one 
corner stands the coffee-maker with his charcoal fire and his 
little pots ; and round the walls, on the floor, are seated the 
customers. Some are smoking the keef or chopped hemp, 
which is in favor here ; others are drinking coffee or green tea ; 
and soon some of them produce tambourines and various 
stringed instruments, which might be either mandolines, gui- 
tars, or banjos, and begin an amateur concert to an accom- 
paniment of hand- clapping. Therewith soon arises singing, 
usually of the amatory kind ; and I am bound to say that the 
tunes seemed to me extremely pretty, most of them reminding 
one somewhat of Italian church music. The rank and fashion 
of Tangier go on for hours in this manner, always grave, always 
sober, and apparently always satisfied. 

One other entertainment I have had of a private character. 



FLOTSAM AN^B JETSAM. 255 

This was a dance of Moorish women, organized for my especial 
benefit, and as to which so much secrecy was enjoined, that I 
felt it necessary to ask whether the dance was one which a 
young lady might allow her mamma to see. Being reassured 
as to this, I accompanied my native friend to a Moorish house 
in the evening. Here, in a small upper room, we found five 
musicians squatted on the floor, and with them three women in 
rich ^loorish dresses with uncovered faces. Two of the women 
were very handsome ; and of these two, one, who I was told 
was but fourteen, had, I think, the most beautiful dark-brown 
gazelle-like eyes, the most magnificent black hair, the best com- 
plexion, with a mantling red in the cheek, and the prettiest 
and most expressive features I have ever seen in a brunette. 
This girl was dressed in a long loose garment, with a sash round 
her hips, and a silk handkerchief tied round her head, and 
when she stood up to dance I saw that her feet, which peeped 
out from under the long dress, were naked. She seemed to 
have none of the gravity of the East ; on the contrary, when 
she had recovered the fright which the presence of a Nazarene 
seemed at first to cause in her, she was fall of laughter and as 
playful as a kitten. She mocked the grave musicians, imitat- 
ing their gestures and caricaturing their notes ; she caught up 
and repeated the words of their singing, and generally de- 
meaned herself like what she seemed to be — a beautiful spoiled 
child. Then she arose to dance, and I thought I had never 
seen anything so lithe and so graceful. The dance was of the 
simplest kind. It consisted mainly in movements of the hips, 
accompanied by small steps in the few square feet of vacant 
space, while in her hands she took the two ends of a silk hand- 
kerchief which she now twisted round and round and held 
before her face, and now suJBfered to faU lower. There was 
nothing in it all, but the grace and the charm of it were mar- 
vellous. After a time she sank down exhausted close to me, 
and taking my hand placed it on her heart, which I felt was 
beating quickly. Then she laughed at what appeared to be a 
rebuke addressed to her by one of the other women, and re- 



256 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 

lapsed into her little tricks. After this much tea was drunk by 
everybody, and the other women danced in like manner. 
There seemed no reason why it should ever end, and when I 
retired the ball was still going on. 

Eastern as Tangier is, something is being done to civilize it. 
There are here nothing less than four thirty-ton Armstrong- 
guns, and there is a Mr. M'Hugh, formerly in the English army, 
but now a Morocco Colonel, who has already mounted two of 
these guns, and is now hard at work getting the other two into 
position. There are troops, too, who* are drilled every day — 
with English words of command, by the way — and there is 
generally an aspect of much determination not to submit with- 
out a struggle to any enterprise of the hated Spaniard, who is 
generally suspected of taking a much livelier interest in the 
place than he has any business to do. The English, on the 
other hand, are looked upon by the Moors as their natural pro- 
tectors. For an Englishman they will do anything, and Sir 
John Hay, our Minister here, is quite the king of the place ; 
which, indeed, he well deserves to be, for, in the midst of 
temptations to which most of the other foreign representatives 
succumb, he has always kept the English name pure and unsul- 
lied, and has sought only to be a friend to the much-worried 
and much-plundered Sultan of Morocco. 

One word only remains to be said about Tangier. It is that 
there is here one of the best hotels anywhere to be found, and 
far superior to anything I know either at Gibraltar or even in 
London. It is very clean, the cuisine is quite excellent, and 
the charges are very moderate — ten shillings a day for board 
and lodging and everything except wine. This hotel is kept 
by M. Bruzeand, a Frenchman, who was formerly messman to 
an English regiment. 



FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 357 



CHAPTER LXIX. 

On Board the Lively Sally, 
At Sea, off Malaga, New Year's Day, 1882. 
Having rejoiced over two yachts which liave come into 
Gibraltar crippled (one of them twenty days from Cowes with 
her bulwarks washed away), while we have not carried away a 
rope-yarn ; having dined with Charley from Aldershot, filled 
lip with water, and laid in a sack of new potatoes and some 
fresh meat, we got under way yesterday, bound for Algiers. 
We started with a little air from the westward ; but it is need- 
less to say that we were hardly clear of Europe Point before it 
first fell calm and then "began to blow from E.N.E., which is as 
nearly dead on end as a Mediterranean wind can manage. We 
have, therefore, done but little good, and this evening as I 
write, there is a big ring round the moon, the wind is singing 
a lively little tune among the rigging, and the little vessel is 
beginning to jump in a way which makes us foresee that we 
shall come badly off for dinner. 

At Sea, off Cape Sacratif, 2d January. 
Just as I thought. A strong wind and a nasty sea have 
forced us to take in all the flying kites with which we started, 
and having taken down two reefs in the mainsail, we have been 
thrashing to windward along the Spanish coast all day, without 
making anything to the good worth talking about. And now 
things look worse instead of better, and we have stripped once 
more to the storm-trysail, and are trying to persuade ourselves 
that we are altering the bearing of the light. 

Off Cape Sacratif, 3d January. 
We have had a shocking bad night. The wind increased to 
three parts of a gale, and we had at last to heave her to. The 
breeze now begins, however, to sliow signs of abating, and 
both wind and sea seem to be rapidly going down. 



258 FLOTSAM AlsTD JETSAM. 

Off Cape de Gtata, 4th January. 
Yesterday afternoon we had four hours quite calm as regards 
the wind, though there was a pretty good swell still running. 
Then a breeze sprang up from the S.W., and we set our stud- 
ding-sail and ran past Cape Sabinal nicely. But at four o'clock 
this morning we got a heavy thunderstorm with torrents of rain 
(what a ridiculous sea this is !), then we had a succession of 
squalls with the wind *' fannying" about anyhow — and now at 
four o'clock we have got it hard again from the old quarter, N.E. , 
freshening too rapidly, and looking like mischief with a heavy 

sea. 

At Sea, between Europe and Africa, 5th January. 

We were thumped about pretty handsomely all night, and 
my bones begin to feel quite sore. I wish I could find out 
some way to keep the clothes on me in the night ; to prevent 
myself from taking headers into the bulkhead ; and to bring 
myself up on one side or the other of my berth as it rolls me 
over incessantly from port to starboard and from starboard to 
port. When this kind of thing goes on, you get rolled out of 
the soundest sleep before long, and then the only thing is 
either to go on deck and '* see how it looks" — which is some- 
how a satisfaction, however bad it does look — or else to lie and 
listen to the howling of the wind, the creaking of the ship's 
timbers, and the wash of the water outside, varied occasionally 
by that heavy thud and rush which tell you that she has taken 
a little green water on board and is getting rid of it through 
the scuppers. 

Squalls all day — the only diversion to the wind, which still 
sticks right ahead. It is a horrid wind, a Black Levanter, full 
of strength and bad weather. They tell me it is what is called 
in these parts the *' Majorca Carpenter," a name it well de- 
serves, from the number and importance of the jobs it brings 
to the trade. This evening, however, we have managed to 
get hold of Cape Ivi light on the African side — but it is very 
slow and very hard work, and it strikes me that we are having 
rather a dusting over this passage. 



FLOTSAM A:N'D JETSAM. 259 

Off Cape Tenez, Africa, Friday, 6tli January. 

We are still jamming along under our trysail, and this morn- 
ing just before sunrise we managed to make Cape Tenez light. 
The wind is still very hard, the sea heavy, and the weather 
most gloomy and depressing. I have now been well-nigh a 
month at sea, and / have never seen the sun since I left Eng- 
land. This is a fact which I note for the benefit of those who 
leave their native shores in the belief that by going a thousand 
miles nearer to the equator they will be sure of sunshine and 
warmth. I have forgotten what sunshine is like. Cowes is the 
last place at which I saw such a phenomenon, and the eccentric 
luminary has been playing hide-and-seek with me ever since, 
as though he were determined I should never get an altitude 
on or off the meridian again. The whole sky is covered to- 
day, as usual, with gray clouds, and every now and then there 
comes a squall which knocks up a sea, pours down torrents of 
rain, and makes the wind fly about till you don't know what 
course to steer next. 

Then as to warmth. Afric's burning shore is a mere mis- 
sionary's delusion. It is wretchedly cold and chilly, and but 
for the persuasion that I am looking at Algeria I should say 
that I was off Orford Ness in a November breeze. It is true 
the thermometer is at 60*^ — but there is a rawness and damp- 
ness about the air very real and sensible — which, indeed, must 
be so, for under it Dick has disclosed a revival of spirits which 
nothing could produce but a palpable reminder of Suffolk. 

As a sea the Mediterranean is a mere swindle. It is, in- 
deed, not a sea at all, but a miserable puddle with nothing of 
the salt and savor that make the breath of our northern seas so 
invigorating. Withal, in its angry moods it is vicious and 
nasty, yet always mean and pretty — a very woman among 
waters. The sea never seems to run whole and handsome as it 
does outside, with great swinging billows ; it is cross, and 
short, and jumpy, and very vicious. I think quite the worst 
and most dangerous sea I ever saw was one I met with off 
Cires Point, when coming from Tangier to Gibraltar in the 



260 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

teeth of a whole gale from the eastward. It was so steep, so 
deep, so hollow, and so cliff-like, that it seemed impossible 
any vessel could rise to it ; and the ship I was in — a fine 
steamer of VOO tons — took it in green over the bows. To-day 
we have been turning to windward against a strong north- 
easter, but the sea there is with it is out of all proportion to 
the wind, and, as the good little ship plunges down the steep 
and dives into it, she has hardly time to shake her bowsprit 
clear of one wave before the next is upon her. Yet she is not 
being forced ; for we are under a storm trysail, a mere spitfire 
fourth jib, and a trifle of foresail with the bonnet off. 

Algiers, Saturday, 7th January. 

At last. We made Cape Caxine light at midnight, and this 

morning early we got abreast of our port, in which we are now 

happily moored, after thrashing about with head winds and 

seas, and taking seven days to do our four hundred odd miles. 



CHAPTER LXX. 

On Board the Lively Sally, 

Algiers, 10th January, 1882. 

** Know ye not that my people are a nation of brigands, and 
that I am their chief ?" 

Such was the explanation and defence of his own position, 
addressed by the late Dey of Algiers to the English Consul who 
remonstrated with him against the practices of the Algerine 
rovers — practices which consisted in a free appropriation of 
other people's property, and a still freer delivery of other peo- 
ple's persons into slavery. The same answer may be, and 
practically is, made by Monsieur Gambetta and his fellows in 
reply to any observations addressed to them with regard either 
to Tunis or to Algiers. This answer is, it is true, often ac- 



FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 261 

companied by assertions that the progress of civilization has 
been much helped, and the material condition of Algiers much 
improved, by the French occupation. But it is hard, indeed, 
to see any great signs of this. Dirt and oppression seem to 
reign supreme throughout the city. You walk ankle- deep in 
mud, and from the most poverty-stricken Arab in rags to the 
most consequential official in gold lace, all the inhabitants ap- 
pear to be struck with an abiding grief. One reason of this is, 
as I am informed, that the English have, with one accord, 
abstained this year from coming to Algiers. They are under 
the entirely erroneous impression that the insurrection which is 
smouldering in the remote provinces of the colony might af- 
fect their precious persons ; and they are, perhaps, somewhat 
moved also by the knowledge which former writers have im- 
pressed upon them, that Algiers boasts quite the worst hotels 
in Europe, combined with some of the highest charges and 
worst cooking to be found in any quarter of the globe. At 
any rate the English have not come ; and as the French colo- 
nist, who has been banished for State purposes from his beloved 
Paris, casts his eyes and his thoughts eastward toward Tunis, 
or southward and westward toward the insurgent tribe on the 
borders of Morocco, he curses the day when he quitted the 
boulevard, and indulges in prophecies of the speedy downfall 
of Monsieur Gambetta's Government. 

What strikes one in the first aspect of Algiers, is that it is 
one large attempt to reproduce the Rue de Rivoli. The same 
arcades, the same heavily-built houses, the same shops, and 
the same cafes, full of the same people, are found here ; and 
if the scene is somewhat diversified by ragged, coffee-colored, 
bare-footed Arabs, this seems rather an accidental and tempo- 
rary feature than an abiding characteristjc of the place. All 
day long the troops fire guns and play upon drums and trum- 
pets in distressing efforts to remind the natives that they are 
there as masters. The natives, indeed, are not at all inclined 
to dispute the fact, though they certainly lament it. Up one 
of the by-streets iu the Arab quarter lives a friend of mine — 



262 FLOTSAM AKD JETSAM. 

an Arab barber — and, finding I was English, he has imparted 
to me his sorrows. He was here as a lad in the good old times 
of the Dey, when everybody was rich and well-to-do, and when 
you could buy two fowls for a shilling. Now, he says, all is 
changed, and as he shaves his compatriots, turning the patient's 
head from side to side as he clears off every vestige of hair, 
not merely from the crown of the head, but all over the face, 
with the sole exception of the eye-brows and the mustachio, 
he details his griefs. *' Oil is dear, bread is dear ; everybody 
is poor — even the French are poor ; the only people who are 
rich are the Jews. Even the razors are not what they were when 
I was young. They used to cut beautifully — now they won't 
cut at all. But God is great, and, perhaps, things will mend.'' 

As far as climate is concerned, there ought not to be much 
to mind in this country. But withal the melancholy fact re- 
mains, that for those who are not too consumptive to think 
of anything else but their health, Algiers is a dreary place. 
Beyond the cafes, where the Frenchmen spend every day a 
happy two or three hours in drinking three halfpennyworth of 
absinthe, there are no amusements whatever. The only enter- 
tainments 1 have been able to devise for myself are two. One 
is having my hair cut, and the other is going to the native 
Turkish bath, where I have found shampooers so skilful and 
scientific as made me blush for those brother professionals of 
theirs in England, who rub one over as though they were 
polishing plate. I have tried a third amusement — that of 
going ashore and walking about the streets in the endeavor to 
buy something — but T do declare that there is nothing here to 
be bought that is worth taking away, unless it be at prices too 
fabulous for belief. I find indications that in former times the 
country produced fine stuffs and rich embroideries, but at the 
present time they manufacture nothing but the most barbaric 
trumpery. 

It is not particularly warm and not at all sunny ; and on the 
whole, if any of my compatriots wish to see what Algiers is 
like, I should advise them to go to Paris, and stay there. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Accidents, 177. 

AccasTOMED, becoming, to a thing, 178. 

Adaptation, 202. 

Admiration, how to express our, 182. 

Algiers, late Dey of, 260; aspect and 
climate of, 262. 

American people, 50. 

Anciiora-ge, its importance, 235. 

Antiquities, how to get them, 55. 

Appearances, real and false, 30. 

Aris rocRAcr, what they contrived to in- 
vent, 36 ; how composed, 53. 

Art, different styles and periods of, 125 ; 
the object of, 157. 

Artichoke, how to cook it, 199. 

Asparagus, how to cook, 16. 

Assertions, precise and certain, 191. 

Attire, vulgarity of, on a holiday, 196. 



Children, the love of, 225. 

Civilization, a state of, 158. 

Coffin, a lovely, 33. 

Commodore and the Queen, which great- 
est, 62. 

Communion, its pleasures and difficul- 
ties, 69. 

Companionship in vice or corruption, 
132. 

Comte's philosophy, 185. 

Consideration for others, 51. 

Constancy, its value. 173. 

Conventionalities, 168. 

CoNVBKSATioN, a habit in, 136. 

Counterbalances, 228. 

CoAVES, a ball and tea at, 108 ; in winter, 
239 ; in a winter gale off, 241. 

Crossing the line-, reflections on, 97. 

Cucumber, how to deal with it, 210. 



B. 

Bacon, quoted, 161. 

Bacon's Or£;anon, 159. 

Bargain, breaking the, 31. 

Beggar, passing by a, 153. 

Belief, demonstration of a, 206. 

Beliefs originate in their apparent 
profit, 75. 

Benvbnuto, anecdote of, 204. 

Bible, the, a grand record, 54. 

Bill, a revolutionary character, 63. 

Billy Baby run asliore, 15. 

Biscay, in the bay of, 244. 

"Blackefriers,*' parliament at, 154. 

Body, this vile, 127 ; a sound, its im- 
portance, 196. 

Brown, John, hero of Harper's Ferry, 
35. 

Bruges, cathedral and paintings. 208. 

Business, a rage for a big, 117; and 
time, 200. 

C. 

Candlesticks, Queen Anne's silver, 25. 
Carlyle and hero worship, 50. 
Cat, reflections on a favorite, 120. 
Causes, little, produce great effects, 52. 
Channel islands, 76. 
Charley, the watch on board, 39. 
Chart, a, the importance of, 76 ; Eng- 
lish and French, 88. 



Daybreak, appreciation of the, 47. 

Death, the fear of, 32. 

Deception of ourselves and others, 191. 

Descartes, quoted, 203. 

Diamond, actress wishing to sell her, 6u. 

Diderot, quoted, 121. 

DiNAN, tne monasteries and laborers at. 

79. 
Dinner, description of a, 102 ; with an 

escaped convict, 109 ; at a late hoar, 198. 
Disappointment, 205. 
Dogs, love for, 152. 
Duke of Norfolk and his cathedral, 

51. 



Eden, two trees in the garden of, 65. 

Editor, murderous, 178. 

Education. 180 ; of upper and lower 
classes, 48. 

England, itsjnhabitants, 36 ; materially 
and morally, 37 ; common people of, 
82 : not a free country, 146. 

English and Americans contrasted, 51. 

Englishman, the distinguished charac- 
teristic of, 125. 

Englishmen, a belief of. dying out, 28 ; 
their condition and attitude, 37 ; judg- 
ing foreign countries, 164. 

Erasmus, quoted, 100. 



264 



INDEX, 



Excellence, how to attain relative, 184. 
Excuse, the selfish and cowardly, 66. 
Experience, learning from, 160. 

F. 

Failures, will make j'ou respect, 10. 
Falmouth, the weather at, 85. 
Fecant, in harbor at, 56; description 

of, 58. 
Feelings, difficulty of expressing our 

own, 192. 
Fiddle, the force of a, 33. 
Fish, how to keep, 2^0. 
Fishermen, the Society of North Sea, 6 ; 

English and French contrasted, 59. 
FisniNG, succest^ful, 208. 
Fog, the mystery of, 23. 
Force of wind, wave, soul, 40. 
Forgiveness, 167. 

Formula for household cavalry, 148. 
Fortune, ,a:ood and evil, 63. 
French, eiSects of war on the, 13. 
Friends, estimating them aright, 181. 
Fruits, a test, 55. 

G. 

Galileo's prophecy, 186. 

Gambling by widows and orphans, 163. 

Garlic, the true use of, 9. 

Genius, a disease of brain tissue, 94 ; 
varieties of, 95. 

Gibraltar, entering bay at, 246 ; de- 
scription of, 247 ; possession of, by the 
English, 250. 

GiRDLER Sands, 46. 

Glass, means of toughening, 165. 

God, admiration of the works of, 202. 

Great, the misfortune of the truly, 1.58. 

Greenwich hotel, people at, 26; little 
boys diving at, 27 ; sailors' palace home 
at, 29 ; run into at, 29 ; regatta at, 44 ; 
hospital, description and capacity of, 
44. 



Hatred, difficulty of, 207. 

Havre, impossible to get freight at, 13 ; 
heading for, 115; M'aiting for good 
weather at, 122 ; port and sanitary dues 
at, y^i. 

Help, situations in which no human be- 
ing can. 9. 

Henry IV. of France, one of the ten 
wishes of, 152. 

Heroes in these times, 50. 

Holidays, multiplication of, 41 ; a few, 
a delusion, 70. 

Holloway's pills, 221. 

Honesty, real difficult, 67 ; its rareness, 
107. 

Hotel Royal, welcome at, 13. 

Hotspur quoted, 155. 

House op Commons, how seats are ob- 
tained, 66. 

House, getting into a new, 138. 

Hunger, imperiousness of, 59. 

Huxley, statement about society, 65. 



I, the centre of the universe, 14. 

Idea, no, ever dies, 16 ; the power of ; aa, 

34. 
Ideas, French, 195. 
Idlers, paradise of, 101. 
Ignorance, consolations of, 206. 
Impostor, miserable, 134. 
Imposture, appearance and words and, 

130. 
Indecision a disquieting thing, 81. 
Ingratitude, 177. 
Intellect, its proper place, 200. 
Ireland, tlie blind beggar in, 91. 
Irish stew, how made, 222. 
Irishman, the saying of an, 38. 



Judgments passed on imperfect knowl- 
edge, 216. 

L. 

Labor not a curse, 11. 

Lady, the face of a great, 7. 

Law, acting on the higher and lower, 49 ; 
the injustices of, HO. 

Laws, elementary, 173 ; why obey them, 
193. 

Legitimist, a, 56. 

Letter to a man about to marry, 231 ; 
to a married man, 233. 

Life, the great secret of, 40 ; what shall 
a man do with his. 49, .'j7 ; treasures in, 
60 ; how spent, 102, 214, 216 ; a series 
of disillusions, 104; a dream, 106; three 
good moments in, 108 ; the despairing 
feature of, 127 ; object of, 149, 215 ; 
liow we wear our, 161 ; secret of success 
in, 166 ; the ideal state of, 189 ; its 
superfluity, 210. 

Lisbon, off the rock of, 245. 

London, a real, 27 ; life in, 105. 

Londoners compared with North Sea 
fishermen, 6. 

Love, discussing it with a fair one, 96 ; 
the thraldom of a new, 117 ; despised, 
134 ; falling into, 142. 

LovEMAKiNG, 79; its most pleasing 
stage, 95. 

Luck, thrust upon some, 10. 



M. 

Madrid, a play at a theatre in, 135. 

Magna Charta, declaration of, 65. 

Maistre, Joseph De, 25. 

Man, a real one— a miserably married, 
5, 20 , natural, unnatural, drowning, 
inconsistent, 17, 18, 22 ; a shy, 26 ; is 
what others think of him, 121 ; con- 
tradictory, 124; the ideal, 126, 165 ; his 
varied appearances, 147 ; the superior 
cleverness of, 165 ; wanting something 
to do, 172. 

Marketing with Bill, 115. 

Master's certificate, preparing for, 39. 

Means and ends, 218. 



INDEX. 



:^65 



Men, leaders of. 22 ; great unknown, 20 ; 
iuveuiions! lo relieve the lazinci^n of, 
64: wi!>c iind f-.olic^h. 7:^ ; two blind, 
81 ; extinction of tne race of real, lvi8 ; 
all born to special uses or misuses, 
Vii ; self-made, 219. 

Mii.L. John ytuart, quoted, 6. 

Mind, t^trangel coni^tituted, 9,19. 

Misery, tiic cause of personal, 232. 

Money, <:aiiiiii;^', 145 ; chantiers, 179. 

Moon, intliieiice on the weather, ()9. 

MoouiaH cafes, 254 ; women dancing, 
;<;55. 

Morning, a lively punrise this, 8. 

Mouocco, judicial sy.-iem of, 253. 

Mysulp, an account of, 7. 



N. 

Name, inheriting a great. 142. 
Newspapeks the root of all, 38. 
Novelty, the corse of, 175. 



Observation, the taking an, 68, 198 

instruction in takinec an, 93. 
Ocean, billows on Atlantic, 243. 
Opinions, the curse of tlie world, 111. 



Paisley shawls, 151. 

Palmerston, Lord, overrated, 24. 

Parliament, British, how engaged, 38, 

Parson, a country, 25. 

People, barbarous and cultured, 20 ; in 

consistency of, 174. 
Personality always changing, 221. 
PiEUVRE, a curious lish, 78. 
Pilot, St. Peter's, Guernsey, 73. 
Pistols, objections to carrying, 105. 
Place, winning a first, 144. 
Plagiarist, an honest. 140. 
Platitude, an old lying. 131. 
Play, the, denouement of, 170. 
Plimsoll and Greenwich hospital, 44. 
Poetry and poets, 112. 
Points, remembrance of people by their 

worst, 61. 
Politics, the perpetual comedy of, 135. 
Pook, the claims of the, 18. 
Port, how to get in, 229 ; conditions of 

getting out of, 240. 
Portrait, when to get, of one's self, 236. 
Pkay, who can, 226. 
Preference, reason for, 75. 
Press, the power of, 171 
Priest and the beggar, 190. 
Prince of naval battles, 28. 
Principle, salable, 217. 
Progress, what is, 149. 
Pkopertt, absolute in sea and laud, 

86. 
Prophecy, the gift of, not enviable. 62. 
Providence, laws of, 45 : e\ idenee of, G8 ; 

'^iii«ct of, ii^ making a dangerous coast, 



Q. 

Queen of Sheba and mutton chops, 



Reason as a guiding principle, 197 ; the 
province of, 227. 

Remkmbranck of a boyish love, 5C. 

J^E-miniscknces, painful, 60. 

ItEPL'TATioN, the insecurity of an un- 
challenged, 110; desire lo have a bel- 
ter, liu. 

Romancers eflective teachers, 54. 

Rulers, inconsistencies of, 24. 



S. 

Sabbath-keeper, 71, 

Sailing, power, diminution of, 61 ; di- 
rections for, 188. 

Sailors, their outfit at Falmouth, 87. 

Sam, the sailor, 113. 

:sea, one lesson of, 24 ; how to land on 
the beach in a broken, 24 ; worth of 
l]vin» at, 25 ; occupation at, 46 ; mak- 
ing the best of it at. 48 : the open, 85 ; 
the weather, its uncertainties at, 92, 
224 : God as seen in the, 201 ; squalls 
at, 257, 258 ; Mediterranean, a swindle, 
259. 

Seafaring, the charm of, 70. 

Seamanship, examination in, 41. 

Science, progress of, 64 ; the only one, 
141. 

Secrets, their importance, 74. 

Self INTEREST, 8, 223. 

Self-knowledge, 176. 

Sentiments, false, 168, 

Sex, restraining the female, 120. 

Ship, the best place to live in, 237 ; noth- 
ing like a man's own, 74, 

Solitude, 223. 

Sports, legislation for athletic, 44. 

Standard, an immutable, invariable, 
21. 

Star, steering a course by a, 35. 

Steam, and seamanship, 2.30. 

Steamer, and the guard-ship- in collis- 
ion, 42. 

St. Malo, the character of. 77 ; a breeze 
at, 80 ; municipal authorities of, 83 ; 
leaving, 84. 

Stupldity. 172. 

Suicide, reflections on, 103. 

Sunday a misrepresented day, 71. 

Sydnbv, Algernon, 176-180. 



Tangier, description of, 251, 256. 

Temptation, entertaining a, 43 ; ex- 
posure to, 150. 

Thames, regulations for traflic on the, 34. 

Theories, vain, 186. 

Thoughts, the, impertinence of uttering 
one's own, 192 ; the satisfaction of 
utterin? one's. ]V»3, 



266 



IN^DEX. 



Tide, counting with the, 43 ; allowing 
for a spring, 54 ; out at St. Peter's, 
Guernsey, 74. 

Titles, their meaning, 100. 

Tongues, confusion or, 174. 

Topsail, lacing the, 74. 

ToRRioiAKf, death of, 203. 

Trade, nobody will learn a, 46. 

Trifling, microscopic, 130. 

Troubles, comparative insignificance 
of, 42. 

Trouville, an inscription at, 99. 

Truth, which ? 109. 



Virtue, its proper place, 200. 
Voice, importance of a good, 195. 
Voltaire's hatred for priests, 25. 



William the Conqueror, one of the 
mansions of, 98. 

Winter, laid up for, 129; mornings in, 
143. 

Wisdom, what is it ? 148 ; a bad pre- 
cept of woiiflly, 179. 

Woman, 167 ; ugly and beautiful, single- 
minded, fickleness of, 14, 19, 20, 21 ; 
what a man loves in, 137 ; the demon- 
stration that youJlove a, 157 ; the loving 
of an ugly, 187 ; how to know her, 195. 

Women, English and French contrasted, 
99 ; craving attention, 104. 

Words, idle, 55. 

Work, how really to do a, 156 ; when 
good is assured, 170. 

World, living at the end of the, 144 ; 
what it respects, 171 ; the, organized 
for a difi"erent set of creatures, 11. 



W. 

War, going to, 11, 225. 
Washerwoman, daughter of a, 211. 
Waterford, reflections at, 89 ; the car- 
driver at, 90. 



Y. 

Yacht, again on the, 184 , oflicers of, 

45 ; troubles on board the, 185. 
Yachting off Ostend, 213. 



207 



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WHAT REPRESENTATIVE CLERGY3IEN SAY 

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T. W. Chambers, D.D., Collegiate Reformed Church, New York, sayg: 
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Sylvester F. Scovel, D.D., First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, 
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MEYER'S COMMENTARY ON ACTS. 

A Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Acts of the Apostles. 
By H. A. W. Meter. With Preface, Index and Supplementary Notes to 
the American Edition, by Rev. Wm. Ormiston, D.D., LL.D., New York. 
Large octavo, 544 pages. Cloth, $2.50. 

Meyer's Commentary on the New Testament is a monumental work 
of critical and exegetical learning. 

Dr. T. W. Chambers, New York, says : 

"Meyer justly has been called the prince of exegetes, being at once acute and 
learned.'' 
Dr. Thomas Armitagk, New York, says : 

" It is of immense value in its line." 
Db. Jksse B. Thomas, Brooklyn, N. Y., says : 

"Am glad that Meyer's Acts has received additional value from annotations from 
a hand as wise and skilful as that of Dr. Ormiston." 
Dr. Joseph T. Duryea, Boston, says : 

" Meyer is always helpful in matters of Lexicography, Philology, and Syntax." 
Dr. Charles Robinson, New York, says : 

" It is among the very best, and most needed for our use on this side of the water." 
Dr. Arthur Brooks, New York, says : 

"I have found Meyer's Commentary on the Acts so useful for its large learning, 
wise judgment, and conciseness of statement, that I am very glad that it is republished 
in the form in which it can have a general circulation. 









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